Studying Dynamic Decision-Making in Construction Management using Adaptive Interactive Simulations

Construction projects consist of multiple components such as on-site equipment resources, site layout, labor productivity, unexpected external events, and human decisions regarding resource allocation and activity rescheduling. Stochastic spatial and temporal interactions between those components result in dynamic complexity of construction projects. Decisions made in such dynamic task environments must consider both immediate impacts and long-term dynamic feedback. The objective of this research is to use the adaptive interactive simulation framework as an experimental test bed to study dynamics of decisions in construction scenarios. A simulation of a four story structural steel framed office building project was implemented within Interactive Construction Decision Making Aid (ICDMA) under five different decision strategies. Simulated construction performance data at each decision control point was collected and analyzed to compare the project dynamics resulting from five strategies, and those strategies were assessed as well. This research provides a perspective to study dynamics of decision making through interactive simulation while furthering the knowledge of effective decision making and the development of dynamic decision support systems in construction management.