Trends of Outsourcing Engineering Tasks by Construction Firms in Egypt

Azzam, Samar Abdelrahman; Mohamed, Shady Ahmed; ELDASH, KARIM

doi:10.21608/erjsh.2023.239443.1224

Trends of Outsourcing Engineering Tasks by Construction Firms in Egypt

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering at Shoubra, Benha University, Cairo, Egypt.

10.21608/erjsh.2023.239443.1224

Abstract

The primary tasks of construction firms are construction, engineering, and administration, in addition to legal, human resources, business development, and public relations tasks. Engineering tasks may include design review, preparation of shop drawings, planning and follow-up, cost control, value engineering, and as-built drawings. However, engineering tasks are essential for construction projects; they are challenging because they are time-consuming and require a high level of knowledge and skills. Because of these challenges, some construction firms outsource engineering tasks to specialized engineering firms. Since limited literature currently exists for engineering tasks outsourcing, this study aims to identify engineering tasks outsourcing among construction firms in Egypt in terms of which tasks, reasons for the outsourcing, and related risks. We conducted a questionnaire survey among construction firms to achieve the study objectives. The results conclude that 77% of the responding firms have outsourced one or more engineering tasks, which shows that outsourcing has become an important strategy for conducting engineering tasks. Data on firm demographics, types of engineering tasks outsourcing, reasons for outsourcing, and other aspects related to outsourcing engineering tasks were also collected. The results show that construction firms perceive engineering outsourcing as more efficient than in-house engineering tasks implementation, especially in terms of high quality and timely implementation. However, outsourcing has a negative impact in terms of cost. In addition, the results show that shop drawings are the most outsourced engineering task with about 75%, while cost management is the least outsourced engineering task with only 8%.

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