Risk Management in Construction Projects During COVID-19 Pandemic

This research project focuses on identifying and managing risks in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. It addresses the health and safety of workers, project delays, and cost overruns caused by the pandemic. The study reviews existing literature that primarily focuses on minimizing the spread of COVID-19 among construction workers and expands on this by examining risks such as material shortages, increased costs, and lockdowns. The research employs a qualitative methodology, involving interviews with project managers in Victoria, Australia, to identify specific challenges faced during the pandemic. Grounded theory will be used to analyze the interview data and develop strategies to mitigate these risks. The project outlines a detailed timetable and budget for the research, with expected findings including strategies to manage health and safety risks, cost overruns, and project delays. The research includes a literature review, a summary table of reviewed articles, and a theme matrix highlighting key concepts.

Research topic:
Managing risk in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is targeted to identify the risks that can be caused to the health and safety of the workers,
project duration overruns, exceeding the estimated cost in construction projects due to the
COVID-19 outbreak and to find proper strategies to mitigate those identified risks.
Introduction:
Construction industries are facing a lot of risks and difficulties, due to the COVID-19 pandemic
outbreak. Various research articles have been published addressing how to mitigate the COVID-
19 spread among workers within the construction site (Aslan & Türkakın 2022; Wang, Yi & Wang
2023; Arya 2021). But according to the literature, it is focused only on minimising the spread of
COVID-19 among the labourers when working on the construction site. It is crucial to keep
labourers healthy and safe, but apart from the health risk of the workers on the construction
site, more risks can be caused to construction project delays, which overrun the cost of the
project. This research intensely focuses on identifying the risk that can be risen to delay
construction projects during the pandemic outbreak such as risks in finding and delivering
materials, increased material costs, inflation due to the pandemic, and countries' lockdowns to
minimize the pandemic spread.
The studies of Aslan & Türkakın (2022) focus on how to allocate skillsets to minimize the virus
spread among workers. Also, Aslan & Türkakın (2022) found that reducing the number of
labourers reduced the health and safety risk, as well as the overall cost of the project and the
project duration have been increased to a manageable limit concerning the reduced risk level of
health and safety. Wang, Yi & Wang (2023) also concerned about the safety of the construction
workers is more important. Wang, Yi & Wang (2023) focused on making small resting areas for
each labourer group to reduce the spread of the virus. Arya (2021) focused on minimizing the
number of labourers who are working in an exact geographical area in which construction is
going on, to keep a safe distance between each labourer to avoid virus spread. Also, Arya (2021)
highlighted that keeping labourers safe is a key point to avoiding delays and cost overruns in
construction projects. From the literature studies (Aslan & Türkakın 2022; Wang, Yi & Wang
2023; Arya 2021), it is obvious to keep labourers safe and healthy to maintain the required
workforce in the construction field and maintain the flow of the construction activities without
any delays and cost overruns.
Research Questions or Objectives
Research Question.
Research is based on finding proper strategies to overcome and manage risks in a construction
project during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Objectives.
 To identify the risk associated with construction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 To find the proper strategies to minimize the risks that can be caused during the COVID-
19 pandemic.

Methodology
In order to find strategies for the adopted research questions and research objectives, a
literature review was done by using Scopus to figure out what the recent studies carried out
with relevant to the adopted research question and to its objectives. As well as to identify the
research gaps.
To identify the answers to the research question, will carry out qualitative methodology, and
expect to interview a specific number of project managers to identify what are the risks that
they have faced regarding project delays and cost overruns and safety of the workers, during
the Pandemic outbreak. And expect to follow the grounded theory analysing method in order to
identify the strategies to overcome the identified risks associated with the construction industry
during COVID-19.
Research Scope
Ten project managers from Victoria Australia will be interviewed.
Timetable and Budget
Timetable
Item Description Duration Starting
Date
Ending
Date
1.0 Finalizing the research proposal 15 days 24/04/2023 24/04/2023
1.1 Final proposal submission 10 days 24/04/2023 04/05/2023
1.2 Approval for the final submission 5 days 05/05/2023 10/05/2023
2.0 Doing the interview 54 days 11/05/2023 06/07/2023
2.1 Finalizing what data’s to be collected from
the interview
14 days 11/05/2023 25/05/2023
2.2
Doing research about who are the well-
experienced project managers in Victoria
Australia
10 days 26/05/2023 04/06/2023
2.3 Getting confirmation from the selected PM
to do the interview
10 days 05/06/2023 15/06/2023
2.4 Making the interview questions and the
plans
20 days 26/05/2023 15/06/2023
2.5 Carrying out the interviews 20 days 16/06/2023 06/07/2023
3.0 Making the report 60 days 07/07/2023 06/09/2023

3.1 Organising the collected data 10 days 07/07/2023 17/07/2023
3.2 Develop a report with respect to the
collected data
50 days 18/07/2023 06/09/2023
4.0 Finalizing the report 30 days 07/09/2023 08/10/2023
4.1 Re-reading the developed report and
correcting errors, grammar, spelling
mistakes, referencing styles
20 days 07/09/2023 27/09/2023
4.2 Formatting the written report – scaling the
paragraphs' spacings, font sizes…etc
10 days 28/09/2023 08/10/2023
5.0 Submit the report 1 day 09/10/2023 10/10/2023
Budget:
Item Description Unit Unit
Price
(AUD)
Quantity Amount
(AUD)
1 Internet connection – Aussie
broadband
1 month
rental
79.00 6 Months 474.00
1.1 Internet Modem 1 Unit 179.00 1 No 179.00
2 Transportation cost - - - 1500.00
3 Telephone cost – Boost mobile 1 month
rental
30.00 6 Months 180.00
4 Laptop 1 Unit 2000.00 1 No 2000.00
5 Printer 1 Unit 69.00 1 No 69.00
6 A4 Sheets 1 Bundle 8.20 2 No 16.20
7 Stationeries - - - 50.00
8 Payments for Library, journals - - - 1000.00

Grand Total 5468.20
Expected Findings:
Expecting to find proper strategies to mitigate the risk which can be associated with health and
safety, cost overruns of the budget, and exceeding the duration of the construction projects
during the COVID-19 outbreak.
References
Aslan, S. & Türkakın, O. H. 2022, ’ A construction project scheduling methodology considering
COVID-19 pandemic measures’, Journal of Safety Research, 80, pp. 54-66.
Wang, H. Yi, W. & Wang, S. 2023,’ Facility planning and schedule design in the pandemic:
Eliminating contacts at construction workplace’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 395, art. no.
136394.
Araya, F. 2021,’ Modeling the spread of COVID-19 on construction workers: An agent-based
approach’, Safety science, 133, 105022.
Appendix
Summary Table
Element Aslan & Türkakın 2022 Wang, Yi & Wang 2023 Arya 2021
Full Citation Aslan, S. & Türkakın, O. H.
2022, ’A construction
project scheduling
methodology considering
Wang, H. Yi, W. & Wang,
S. 2023,’ Facility planning
and schedule design in the
pandemic: Eliminating
Araya, F. 2021,’
Modelling the spread of
COVID-19 on
construction workers: An

COVID-19 pandemic
measures’, Journal of
Safety Research, 80, pp.
54-66.
contacts at construction
workplace’, Journal of
Cleaner Production, 395,
art. no. 136394.
agent-based approach’,
Safety science, 133,
105022
Research aim
This article focuses on
skillset scheduling by
mitigating the COVID-
19 pandemic spread.
This article focuses on
minimizing the physical
contact between labours
during their resting time.
This article focuses on
labour scheduling in
construction to minimize
the COVID-19 spread.
Research
design Experimental Research Correlational Research Correlational Research
Key findings
This article identified, by
changing the number of
labourers and identified
that the risk level
decreased and along with
that duration and the cost
of the project increased.
Building separate resting
areas for the labourers’
groups is reducing the
spread of the COVID-
19 virus.
This study identified that
spreading COVID-
19 among workers is
crucially impacting the
progress of the site.
Limitations
This study only focuses on
resource-constrained
projects only. They also
considered the risk that the
pandemic can cause, the
cost and the duration of
the project.
This study considered that
the starting and the ending
time of the work are not
changed due to the
pandemic spread. (8.00 am
to 5.00 pm)
This study was carried out
by the computer-based
model. The practical
situation in a construction
site was not considered in
this study.
Usefulness
or relevance
to your
research
This article shows that
COVID-19 spared can be
reduced by minimizing the
number of labourers and it
results in increased cost
and the duration of the
project. But keeping the
exact project duration and
the project cost will highly
impact the health of the
workers and the risk of
spreading Covid-19 will
increase, and it is directly
impacting to the cost and
the duration of the project.
It is crucial to control
the COVID-19 spread
through the workers to
keep the progress of the
construction site and to
minimize the health risk of
the workers.
This strategy is useful to
keep the workforce steady
and it will result to
minimize cost overruns and
delays in the projects.
This study shows that
minimizing the number of
labourers who are
engaging in construction
activities, is highly
impacting their health and
safety.
According to the topic I
have chosen, minimizing
labourers’ allocation in
construction activity will
mitigate the safety risks.

According to my research
topic, it is relevant to
mitigate the COVID-
19 spread by limiting the
labour amount.
Theme Matrix
Aslan & Türkakın 2022 Wang, Yi & Wang 2023 Arya 2021
Labourers’
scheduling
This article focused on the
labourers’ scheduling to
minimize the COVID-
19 spread during working
time.
This article focuses on
minimizing physical contact
between labours during their
resting time.
This article focused only
on the labourers’
allocation to minimize
the COVID-19 spread
considering the
geographical area that
they are working.
Impact of
controlling
spread of
the
pandemic
through
labourers’
Considered the cost and the
duration changes that can
vary according to the
labourers’ scheduling.
This study proves that
controlling the pandemic
spread through the workers
is key to maintaining a
steady workforce throughout
the construction period.
This study focused to
enhance the stability of
the workforce.
Controlling
the
labourers’
allocation
– result of
the risk,
cost, and
the
duration
of the
project
According to this study, the
Cost and the duration of the
project increased to a
bearable limit and the risk is
decreased.
Building the separate resting
areas for each worker group
is costly, but this study
proves that with a minimum
cost can be achieved that
target.
This study identified that
minimizing the spread of
the pandemic among
workers crucially is result
in the lack of workforce.
This may result in the
project cost overrun and
considerable project
delays.