Peña-Mora, F; Han, S; Lee, S and Park, M (2008) Strategic-operational construction management: Hybrid system dynamics and discrete event approach. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 134(9), pp. 701-710. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
A significant number of large-scale civil infrastructure projects experience cost overruns and schedule delays. To minimize these disastrous consequences, management actions need to be carefully examined at both the strategic and operational levels, as their effectiveness is mainly dependent on how well strategic perspectives and operational details of a project are balanced. However, current construction project management approaches have treated the strategic and operational issues separately, and consequently introduced a potential conflict between strategic and operational analyses. To address this issue, a hybrid simulation model is presented in this paper. This hybrid model combines system dynamics and discrete event simulation which have mainly been utilized to analyze the strategic and operational issues in isolation, respectively. As an application example, a nontypical repetitive earthmoving process is selected and simulated. The simulation results demonstrate that a systematic integration of strategic perspective and operational details is helpful to enhance the process performance by enabling construction managers to identify potential process improvement areas that traditional approaches may miss. Based on the simulation results, it is concluded that the proposed hybrid simulation model has great potential to support both the strategic and operational aspects of construction project management and to ultimately help increase project performance.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction management; cost control; discrete elements; hybrid methods; simulation models |
| Index terms: | process performance, cost overrun, system dynamics, hybrid simulation, cost control, effectiveness, process improvement, construction manager, integration, infrastructure project, project performance, construction project management, hybrid system, dynamics, schedule delay, discrete event simulation, earthmoving |
| Subjects: | construction operations, infrastructure and transport systems, project management theory and practice, computing systems, systems and processes, project controls, profession, systems engineering, management, performance management, modelling and simulation, performance measurement, financial and cost management, organizational analysis |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Project Management, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Time Control, Site Management, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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