Using Stochastic Decision Networks to Assess Costs and Completion Times of Refurbishment Work in Construction

Abstract

According to the concept of sustainable development, the process of extending the life-cycle of existing buildings (including historical ones) through their restoration not only generates benefits from their layer use but also—and primarily—constitutes a chance for their substance to survive for use by future generations. Building restoration projects are usually difficult to plan, primarily due to the limited amount of information on the technical condition of existing structures and their historical substance, which often makes the scope of renovation works difficult to determine. At the stage of planning such a project, it is, therefore, reasonable to consider various scenarios of its implementation, the occurrence of which can be both random and can be generated by the decision-maker. Unfortunately, in practice, the right tools for planning such projects are not used, which in effect generates problems associated with underestimating their completion time and costs. In subject literature, there are proposals of the use of stochastic and decision networks to assess the course of various projects that are characterised by having indeterminate structures. However, these networks are limited to modelling tasks that either occur purely randomly or are fully generated by decision-makers. There are no studies that enable the modelling and optimisation of the structure of a project while taking into consideration both the random and decision-based nature of carrying it out. In the article, the authors proposed a stochastic decision network that enables the correct modelling of projects with a multi-variant structure of being carried out. For the purpose of analysing the network model, elements of mathematical programming were used to determine optimal decisions (in terms of expected costs and completion times of carrying out a project) that control the structure of the project being modelled. The entirety of the authors’ proposal was backed by a calculation experiment on an example of a refurbishment construction project, which confirmed the application potential of the proposed approach.