Fayek, A R and Oduba, A (2005) Predicting industrial construction labor productivity using fuzzy expert systems. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 131(8), pp. 938-941. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
The objective of this technical note is to illustrate the application of fuzzy expert systems to the modeling of a practical problem-that of predicting the labor productivity of two common industrial construction activities: rigging pipe and welding pipe. This note illustrates how to develop and test such a model, given the realistic constraints of subjective assessments, multiple contributing factors, and limitations on data sets. The factors that affect the productivity of each activity are identified, and fuzzy membership functions and expert rules are developed. The models are validated using data collected from an actual construction project. The resulting models are found to have high linguistic prediction accuracies. This note is of relevance to researchers by demonstrating how a fuzzy expert system can be developed and tested. It is of relevance to industry practitioners by illustrating how fuzzy logic and expert systems modeling can be exploited to help them solve real world problems.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | artificial intelligence; expert systems; fuzzy sets; industrial plants; labor; productivity |
| Index terms: | fuzzy logic, productivity, fuzzy set, labour productivity, industrial construction, modelling, artificial intelligence, accuracy, construction project, practitioner, expert system |
| Subjects: | building construction, data management, decision-making and optimization, management, professional development, production management, analytical methods, artificial intelligence, data science, practitioner |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Site Management, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Information Management, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here