Forbes, D; Smith, S D and Horner, M (2007) A case-based reasoning approach for selecting risk management techniques. In: Boyd, D (ed.) Proceedings of 23rd Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2007, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
The management of risk in the built environment is critical and there is a wide range of techniques available to deal with the task. However, research has shown that only a small number of techniques are used by practitioners (Akintoye and MacLeod 1997, Wood and Ellis 2003). One reason cited for this is a lack of knowledge of the circumstances in which they can be used. The aim of the research in this paper is to produce a case-based reasoning (CBR) tool for decision support in selecting appropriate techniques for built environment problems. The tool uses a case-base developed from historic problems in the literature. A problem framework is used to characterise problems as 1) External or internal – described by the PESTLE Model, 2) The Risk Owner and 3) The Project Phase. A second stage defines the data used in a problem as fuzzy, incomplete or random. The methodology of CBR is heuristic and as such this work has investigated the effect of differing the retrieval mechanism, the inclusion of weights and the threshold value. The results demonstrated a tool which during validation predicted the correct technique up to 93% of the time; additionally it was seen that more complex CBR methods did not result in more accurate prediction rates. Overall the research has produced a simple tool to select appropriate risk management techniques and demonstrated the applicability of CBR to the problem – highlighting that the simplest methodology has proved the most effective.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | risk techniques; decision support; case-based reasoning |
| Index terms: | wood, owner, decision support, heuristic, case-based reasoning, risk management, validation, practitioner, built environment, methodology |
| Subjects: | practitioner, risk assessment, professional development, traditional and composite building materials, research methods, infrastructure and transport systems, cognitive psychology, sociology, decision analysis |
| Topics: | Urban Studies, Research Practice, Information Management, Construction Materials, Risk Management, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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