Computational Technology Resources - CCP

Keywords: S-curve, optimization, resource allocation, genetic algorithms, claims.

Summary

One of the most important objectives of contractors, while striving to satisfy client needs to minimise construction costs, is to pursue maximum profits for fixed price contracts of agreed duration. Only a sound work plan, which includes optimal working sequences and perfect timing for executing each individual activity, can enhance the work efficiency and enable contractors to fulfill the contract at the lowest cost. For decades, the critical path method (CPM) has been widely recognized as an effective tool for project scheduling and to determine and analyze the project impact from the time related problems. Based on the CPM scheduling, many methods have been developed to analyze the time impact and the costs arising thereof if the disruptions cause the delay of the project. However, little attention has been drawn on the potential effects on the extra costs incurred by the disruption of those works which are not on the critical path and will not cause delay of the project.

The objectives of this research are twofold: (1) to develop a contractors' optimal S-curve model which can optimize the allocation of resources along with the project schedule, (2) to use the optimal S-curve model to develop a claim pricing model to simulate and analyze the extra costs caused by any disruption to the work. By using a genetic algorithm, this research successfully proposes a model, which can be used to identify the near optimal schedule including the optimal quantities for each resources and the timing of performing each activity and ultimately obtain the lowest overall construction cost. Furthermore, this study successfully demonstrates that by using the proposed model, whenever there is a disruption to the work in the course of construction, an after-impact schedule, which can optimally rearrange the project resources, can be built in a timely manner to allow the project to be continually executed with the lowest cost and the responsibility for the extra costs caused by the disruption to the work can be readily identified through comparing the before-impact schedule and the after-impact schedule.

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Front Page Browse CCP CSETS CTR IJRT Other Authors Search Purchase Guide FAQ Contact us	Civil-Comp Proceedings ISSN 1759-3433 CCP: 89 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGY Edited by: M. Papadrakakis and B.H.V. Topping Paper 65 Measuring the Impact Cost of Work Disruption W. Lo¹, Y.T. Chen¹^,² and W.S. Lin² ¹Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan ²CECI Engineering Consultants, Inc., Taiwan doi:10.4203/ccp.89.65 purchase the full-text of this paper Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper W. Lo, Y.T. Chen, W.S. Lin, "Measuring the Impact Cost of Work Disruption", in M. Papadrakakis, B.H.V. Topping, (Editors), "Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Engineering Computational Technology", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 65, 2008. doi:10.4203/ccp.89.65 Keywords: S-curve, optimization, resource allocation, genetic algorithms, claims. Summary One of the most important objectives of contractors, while striving to satisfy client needs to minimise construction costs, is to pursue maximum profits for fixed price contracts of agreed duration. Only a sound work plan, which includes optimal working sequences and perfect timing for executing each individual activity, can enhance the work efficiency and enable contractors to fulfill the contract at the lowest cost. For decades, the critical path method (CPM) has been widely recognized as an effective tool for project scheduling and to determine and analyze the project impact from the time related problems. Based on the CPM scheduling, many methods have been developed to analyze the time impact and the costs arising thereof if the disruptions cause the delay of the project. However, little attention has been drawn on the potential effects on the extra costs incurred by the disruption of those works which are not on the critical path and will not cause delay of the project. The objectives of this research are twofold: (1) to develop a contractors' optimal S-curve model which can optimize the allocation of resources along with the project schedule, (2) to use the optimal S-curve model to develop a claim pricing model to simulate and analyze the extra costs caused by any disruption to the work. By using a genetic algorithm, this research successfully proposes a model, which can be used to identify the near optimal schedule including the optimal quantities for each resources and the timing of performing each activity and ultimately obtain the lowest overall construction cost. Furthermore, this study successfully demonstrates that by using the proposed model, whenever there is a disruption to the work in the course of construction, an after-impact schedule, which can optimally rearrange the project resources, can be built in a timely manner to allow the project to be continually executed with the lowest cost and the responsibility for the extra costs caused by the disruption to the work can be readily identified through comparing the before-impact schedule and the after-impact schedule. purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20) go to the previous paper go to the next paper return to the table of contents return to the book description purchase this book (price £95 +P&P)
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