Ko, T; Lee, J and David Jeong, H (2024) Project requirements prioritization through NLP-driven classification and adjusted work items analysis. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 150(3): 04023171, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Project requirements indicate specific works, events, or conditions that should be fulfilled to ensure the construction project success within planned budgets and times. To effectively manage project requirements, requirement prioritization allows for the proper allocation of limited project resources by determining the relative importance and urgency of different requirements. However, because project requirements are typically communicated through textual data in documents, the current approach to prioritizing requirements heavily relies on individuals' expertise, practical knowledge, and experiences. This subjective judgment-based process poses a challenge in ensuring consistent and reliable prioritization, because there may be variations in practitioners' prioritization results. Moreover, a large amount of text in documents can complicate capturing significant requirements within limited bidding times. To address these issues, this study proposes a novel method using historical data analysis and computational techniques. This study adopts historical change orders in order to evaluate impact levels of adjusted work items during construction and natural language processing (NLP) techniques, which enable the automated classification of requirements by the most-related work items. This study conducts a case study by examining documents from resurfacing projects and validating the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. It will also provide a cornerstone for a smarter review and understanding of project documentation and improved decision-making for project planning.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Index terms: | effectiveness, change order, case study, prioritizing, judgment, bidding, project planning, decision-making, variation, construction project, documents, practitioner, project documentation, relative importance, data analysis |
| Subjects: | decision analysis, performance management, production management, contractual condition, professional development, bidding, project planning, data analysis and analytics, data collection methods, risk assessment, control systems, practitioner, dispute resolution |
| Topics: | Legal Issues, Quality Management, Contract Administration, Research Practice, Project Management, Information Management, Risk Management, Roles and Professions, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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