TECHNICAL PAPERS
Dec 1, 1985

Decisions in Construction Operations

Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 111, Issue 4

Abstract

A method for selecting the most desirable construction strategy is proposed in this paper. A decision analysis framework is developed considering the information on relative risk, along with the information on cost, benefit, and consequences of each construction strategy. Many factors affect the safety of construction operations. Labor skill, supervisors' experience and attendance, condition of falsework, weather conditions, type of equipment, level of operator's experience, etc., may be considered as the main factors that affect the safety of construction operations. From an engineering point of view, these factors are always desirable to be in their best states. However, it may not be practical in many cases due to time and money constraints. Consequently, the risk of failure and cost of construction operations, and the consequences of failure need to be estimated in order to decide about the optimum construction strategy. The decision problem is complicated since the state of the factors are generally expressed in linguistic terms. The theory of fuzzy sets is used to translate these terms into mathematical measures and to estimate the risk of failure. The proposed method is illustrated with the help of an example.

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Go to Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 111Issue 4December 1985
Pages: 343 - 357

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Published online: Dec 1, 1985
Published in print: Dec 1985

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Authors

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Bilal M. Ayyub, A. M. ASCE
Asst. Prof., Dept. of Civ. Engrg., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742; formerly Fellow of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science
Achintya Haldar, M. ASCE
Assoc. Prof., School of Civ. Engrg., Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta, GA 30332

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