Project management decisions with multiple fuzzy goals

Wang, R C and Liang, T F (2004) Project management decisions with multiple fuzzy goals. Construction Management and Economics, 22(10), pp. 1047-1056. ISSN 01446193

Abstract

In real-world situations, the project managers must handle conflicting goals that govern the use of the resources within organizations. These conflicting goals must are required to be optimized simultaneously by the project managers in the framework of fuzzy aspiration levels. The multiple fuzzy goals programming model proposed herein helps project managers to minimize project total costs, total completion time, and total crashing costs considering direct costs, indirect costs, contractual penalty costs, duration of activities and total budget constraint. A numerical example illustrates the feasibility of applying the proposed model to a project management decision problem. Consequently, the proposed model yields an efficient compromise solution and the decision maker's overall degree of satisfaction with determined multiple fuzzy goals values. Moreover, the proposed model effectively provides a systematic decision-making framework, enabling a decision maker to interactively modify the fuzzy data and model parameters until a satisfactory solution is obtained. The significant characteristics that differentiate the proposed model from the other models include flexible decision-making processes, multiple objective functions, and wide-ranging decision information.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: fuzzy sets theory; multiple fuzzy goals programming; project cost and duration; project management decisions
Index terms: penalty, fuzzy set, decision-making process, crashing, indirect cost, duration, project management, project cost, completion time, project manager, decision-making, satisfaction, programming, budget constraint, direct cost
Subjects: project management theory and practice, decision-making and optimization, profession, economics, financial and cost management, cost management, programming, project delivery, regulatory law, project controls, decision analysis
Topics: Research Practice, Risk Management, Digital Applications, Roles and Professions, Procurement, Legal Issues, Project Management, Time Control, Cost Management
Descriptive scope: 2 PC

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