Abstract.One of the most difficult problems in construction is taking objective decisions. A decision-making process is very complicated and time consuming (due to the complex nature of construction projects). Many experts with extensive knowledge of construction industry take subjective decisions related to verbal methods of decision-making. Difficulties are related mostly to the creation of a set of relevant criteria, providing answers to the decision-maker's questions. A set of proper criteria and mathematical tools (such as computer calculation algorithms with multi-criteria analysis) could significantly improve objective decision-making. The paper presents ESORD -an informatics tool allowing to establish a hierarchy (ranking) of different types of solutions on the basis of mathematical calculation. The authors present a comparison of different methods used for multi-criteria decision-making.
Construction program, spatial, architectural, and structural decisions taken in the early stages of a project have a significant impact on meeting the goals and needs of the client. The use of principles and methods of value management allows for an in-depth analysis of the project assumptions from the investor’s perspective and leads to the best ratio of the project’s utility value/sustainability to the price of its implementation. However, analysis of literature sources allows to state that optimization of the economic value of the project takes place only in the preimplementation phase of the project. This paper presents the original concept of combining issues of construction project’s utility and economic value optimization. The model enables the maximization of the utility value of the subject of the project, taking into account its economic parameters. To support the implementation of the model, a schedule optimization procedure was developed using metaheuristic algorithm. The model was demonstrated on the basis of a case study. The presented proprietary approach to optimize the construction schedule taking into account the economic and sustainability of a construction project can be used in “design and build” projects, with particular emphasis on projects managed in the sustainable Project Management system.
Practical problems in construction can be easily qualified as NP-hard (non-deterministic, polynomial-time hard) problems. The time needed for solving these problems grows exponentially with the increase of the problem’s size – this is why mathematical and heuristic methods do not enable finding solutions to complicated construction problems within an acceptable period of time. In the view of many authors, metaheuristic algorithms seem to be the most appropriate measures for scheduling and task sequencing. However even metaheuristic approach does not guarantee finding the optimal solution and algorithms tend to get stuck around local optima of objective functions. This is why authors considered improving the metaheuristic approach by the use of neural networks. In the article, authors analyse possible benefits of using a hybrid approach with the use of metaheuristics and neural networks for solving the multi-mode, resource-constrained, project-scheduling problem (MRCPSP). The suggested approach is described and tested on a model construction project schedule. The results are promising for construction practitioners, the hybrid approach improved results in 87% of tests. Based on the research outcomes, authors suggest future research ideas.
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