Model for evaluating uncertain project duration considering construction interface problems

Abstract

Many probabilistic scheduling models have been developed to determine the duration of construction projects. However, these models are not appropriate to capture the effect of the factors that are involved construction interface problems on the durations of multiple activities. This work presents a simulation-based probabilistic scheduling model that includes the impact of construction interface problems on the duration of building projects. The proposed model is established according to an activity duration model and a work-group (WG)-based schedule network. The activity duration model is applied to reflect the effects of "general factors" on the duration of each activity; the WG-based schedule network is employed to evaluate the effects of construction interface problems on the durations of multiple activities. The results of applying the proposed model to an example project reveal that the duration of a project can be over-optimistically estimated if the effects of construction interface problems are neglected.