Modeling the Effect of Subjective Factors on Productivity of Trenchless Technology Application to Buried Infrastructure Systems
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133, Issue 10
Abstract
Trenchless technology (TT) includes a large family of methods utilized for installing and rehabilitating underground utility systems with minimal surface disruption and destruction resulting from conventional excavation. Productivity of TT techniques is affected by a number of subjective factors that need to be evaluated. A productivity index (PI) model is developed in order to represent this subjective effect in refining productivity assessment. The analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy logic are used to develop the proposed PI model that relies on the actual performance of 12 subfactors under three main categories: management, environmental, and physical conditions. The developed PI model resulted in PI equal to 0.7323 and 0.7251 for microtunneling and horizontal directional drilling (HDD) projects, respectively. Multiattribute decision support system software is developed to determine the PI for a specific TT technique using Visual Basic. The PI model is tested, which shows reasonable results. This research is relevant to both industry practitioners and researchers. It provides practitioners with a model that justifies their productivity calculation by quantifying subjective factors effect, which will affect their schedule and cost estimation for trenchless projects. In addition, it provides researchers with the development methodology for the PI model.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133 • Issue 10 • October 2007
Pages: 743 - 748
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 19, 2005
Accepted: Apr 23, 2007
Published online: Oct 1, 2007
Published in print: Oct 2007
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