Details:

Alternative Title:
Joint Transportation Research Program : Civil Engineering
Creators:
Mohan, Varenya Kumar Duvvuru ; Prezzi, Monica
Mohan, Varenya Kumar Duvvuru ; Prezzi, Monica Less -
Corporate Creators:
Purdue University. Joint Transportation Research Program
Corporate Contributors:
Indiana Department of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
Indiana Department of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration Less -
Subject/TRT Terms:
[+]
Changed Field Conditions Change Order Civil Engineering Constructability Issues Cost Savings Economic Conditions Errors Errors And Omissions Geotechnical Change Orders Geotechnical Engineering Reason Code Savings
Publication/ Report Number:
FHWA/IN/JTRP-2011/10
Resource Type:
Tech Report
Geographical Coverage:
Indiana
Corporate Publisher:
Purdue University. Joint Transportation Research Program
Abstract:
Change orders represent a cost to the State and to tax payers that is real and often extremely large because contractors tend to charge very large

amounts to any additional work that deviates from the work that was originally planned. Therefore, efforts must be made to reduce significantly the occurrence

of change orders in order to provide significant cost savings to the state of Indiana and save taxpayer dollars. The proposed research, in this context, developed

a set of guidelines that will allow the geotechnical office of the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) to minimize the probabilities of having change

orders in those projects where they are truly preventable. These guidelines include not only recommendations on how to manage the problem of change orders

associated with the geotechnical construction projects when they are unavoidable but also general recommendations wherever possible for adequate site

investigation, design procedures, and quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) processes that could help minimize change orders.

Based on the analysis conducted on the data collected from 300 INDOT contracts, it was found that the average geotechnical change order amount per

district per year was 1.34 percent of the total estimated construction cost per district per year. The average geotechnical change order amount per district per

year was 10.25 percent of the average amount of total change orders per district per year. The average net overrun due to geotechnical change orders was

$707,000 per district per year. About 28 percent (84 contracts) of the contracts that were considered in this study experienced geotechnical change orders. In

total, 158 geotechnical change orders were recorded in all the contracts. About 41 % of the total road contracts (155 contracts) experienced geotechnical

change orders. About 37% of the total bridge contracts (44 contracts) experienced geotechnical change orders. The other contract types of this study’s dataset

were insignificant as far as geotechnical change orders were concerned. Reason code 206 – Constructability: Soils-Related – was assigned to 101 geotechnical

change orders. Reason code 405 – Changed Field Conditions: Soils-Related – was assigned to 46 geotechnical change orders. Reason code 108 – Errors and

Omissions: Soils-Related – was assigned to the 11 remaining geotechnical change orders. INDOT personnel who were interviewed acknowledged the fact that

the variability of soil is so great that it would be literally impossible to eliminate geotechnical change orders. However, they did recognize the need to address

the following issues that lead to geotechnical change orders (i) Failure to identify areas of poor subgrade soil (ii) Mismatch in piling quantities (iii) Omissions

and constructability issues associated with erosion control work.


Format:
PDF
Funding:
SPR-3224
Collection(s):
US Transportation Collection
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:4656e41d1cfee22013e929759d9dcabdb1447962e7b786c9b976ba3a64613aaf
Download URL:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/23598/dot_23598_DS1.pdf
File Type:

Supporting Files

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