Modelling of Decision Processes in Construction Activity

Abstract

Construction activity with a huge variety of structures, forms and conditions underlying the implementation of construction projects, require special management approach. Decisions are most often made at the planning and preparation stage of a construction project. The literature on the subject includes descriptions of decision support methods and models, including single-criteria and multi-criteria models, operations research and fuzzy models. Different models can be used in different situations. The article contains an analysis of model approaches proposed in the literature, confronted with decision-making processes in engineering practice. The study covered 34 construction projects and 15 companies operating in the construction industry. Several decision situations have been considered. The research carried out in accordance with the seven-stage research process has shown that although the various methods proposed in the cited sources can be used in the implementation of engineering projects, they require modification to suit the specificity of engineering practice. The results of the research are the decision support models proposed by the authors, adapted to the conditions in which construction projects are implemented. In the case of small and relatively simple construction projects, simplified models are usually used, where the use of the last steps of verifying the results and improving the applied model is limited. Large and more complex construction projects were often accompanied by a decision support system consisting of more stages, and in these cases, it turned out to be important to obtain feedback and to refine the decision model accordingly. Research has shown that in large projects it is important to obtain feedback. This is due to, inter alia, from the fact that the implementation of these projects involves much greater financial resources than in small and medium-sized projects. Decision-makers take much more care to verify the correctness of the model, because the effects of wrongly made decisions can be much more severe than in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises. If it is necessary to make strategic decisions related to the future of a given company, attention was paid to models in which the starting point was to clearly define the goal and collect a complete set of information about the decision-making environment. Various analytical and research methods were used, but feedback was always needed to improve the final solution. The observations obtained during the research helped the authors to develop decision support models dedicated to engineering practice that may be useful in the implementation of construction projects.