Authors:
Nobuaki Ishii
1
;
Yuichi Takano
2
and
Masaaki Muraki
3
Affiliations:
1
Kanagawa University, Japan
;
2
Senshu University, Japan
;
3
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Keyword(s):
Business Process Modeling, Competitive Bidding, Project Management, Resource Allocation.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Artificial Intelligence
;
Business Process Management
;
e-Business
;
Enterprise Engineering
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Knowledge Management and Information Sharing
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Symbolic Systems
Abstract:
Since the project price is fixed in EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) projects, the
contractor should devote significant resources to the cost estimation process to realize the accurate cost
estimation and then accept profitable projects from clients in competitive bidding situations. However, it is
impossible for any contractor to devote sufficient resources to all the orders because of the resource
constraints. In this study, a multistage project cost estimation process model, consisting of pre-evaluation,
order selection, man-hour allocation, and a series of cost estimation steps, is developed. Then, this study
devises a resource flow based order selection method and man-hour allocation method to provide successful
results to clients and to maximize the contractor’s profits under the limited resources. Specifically, those
methods dynamically select orders to estimate cost at each order arrival and allocate the resources to the
selected orders, respectively.
The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated through simulation
experiments using the developed model.
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