Lewis, J A; Odeyinka, H and Eadie, R (2011) Innovative construction procurement selection through an artificial intelligence approach. In: Egbu, C and Lou, E C W (eds.) Proceedings of 27th Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2011, Bristol, UK.
Abstract
The construction industry in the British Isles has long been accused of being low tech, averse to funding research and development, and reliant on other sectors allied to construction for innovative improvements. One area has been championed as reflecting change, especially post Latham and Egan, and that is construction procurement. The last few decades have witnessed a proliferation of procurement systems and sub-systems. The methodology herein proposes to customise and innovate bespoke construction project procurement strategies through the development of an intelligent system and to discover if the new procurement methods are indeed innovative. The approach has three main phases; firstly the planning and development phase, followed by the empirical phase and thirdly; the final quasi-experimental phase. After a detailed literature review in the planning stage, the empirical phase includes a pilot survey to ascertain the precise nature of innovation within building procurement in the British Isles and establish an appropriate knowledge acquisition model. This model will be utilised within the main survey to populate a database of relevant innovative procurement case histories. In the final quasi-experimental phase; a fuzzy hierarchical case-based reasoning (CBR) platform will be software engineered as an innovative procurement selection mechanism. This will be validated and verified through a Delphi process to ascertain its effectiveness and appropriateness. The outputted fuzzy hierarchical CBR mechanism will be beneficial to the construction professional seeking innovative procurement selection ideas in the strategy and consultation stages of a building project.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | artificial intelligence; building procurement; innovation |
| Index terms: | platform, Latham, case-based reasoning, procurement method, intelligent system, procurement strategy, building procurement, survey, database, literature review, strategy, knowledge acquisition, procurement system, effectiveness, construction procurement, research and development, construction project, methodology, funding, construction professional, artificial intelligence, history, construction industry |
| Subjects: | digital design, professional development, production management, automation and robotics, performance management, research methods, management, student development, industry analysis, research management, cognitive psychology, data management, industry policy reports, data collection methods, economic analysis, architectural and construction history, data analysis and analytics, contractual arrangements, artificial intelligence |
| Topics: | Procurement, Governance, Project Management, Research Practice, Information Management, Business Strategy, Education, Quality Management, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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