Accelerating repetitive construction projects: With uncertainty and contractors’ judgment

Project acceleration is a common yet complicated task performed by contractors in construction projects. In repetitive projects, contractors often face having to accelerate their projects using tools that are not suited for repetitive projects and that neglect many factors influencing acceleration plans. This paper presents a new method for schedule acceleration of repetitive construction projects. This method brings two main improvements; it captures uncertainty associated with the acceleration cost and allows accounting for contractors own perspective while creating acceleration plans. Activities are prioritized for acceleration based on cost slope and contractors’ judgment. Fuzzy set theory is utilized to model uncertainties associated with acceleration costs, while contractors’ judgment is utilized to account for other influential factors. The developed method provides contractors with a set of measures and indices to evaluate different generated schedule acceleration plans. A case study was analyzed to demonstrate the method’s capabilities and its suitability for repetitive projects.