An Integrated Environment–Cost–Time Optimisation Method for Construction Contractors Considering Global Warming

Kailun Feng, Weizhuo Lu, Shiwei Chen and Yaowu Wang
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Kailun Feng: Department of Construction Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Weizhuo Lu: Department of Civil, Environmental, and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 97187 Luleå, Sweden
Shiwei Chen: Department of Construction Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Yaowu Wang: Department of Construction Management, Key Lab of Structures Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education, Key Lab of Smart Prevention and Mitigation of Civil Engineering Disasters of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-23

Abstract: Construction contractors play a vital role in reducing the environmental impacts during the construction phase. To mitigate these impacts, contractors need to develop environmentally friendly plans that have optimal equipment, materials and labour configurations. However, construction plans with optimal environment may negatively affect the project cost and duration, resulting in dilemma for contractors on adopting low impacts plans. Moreover, the enumeration method that is usually used needs to assess and compare the performances of a great deal of scenarios, which seems to be time consuming for complicated projects with numerous scenarios. This study therefore developed an integrated method to efficiently provide contractors with plans having optimal environment–cost–time performances. Discrete-event simulation (DES) and particle swarm optimisation algorithms (PSO) are integrated through an iterative loop, which remarkably reduces the efforts on optimal scenarios searching. In the integrated method, the simulation module can model the construction equipment and materials consumption; the assessment module can evaluate multi-objective performances; and the optimisation module fast converges on optimal solutions. A prototype is developed and implemented in a hotel building construction. Results show that the proposed method greatly reduced the times of simulation compared with enumeration method. It provides the contractor with a trade-off solution that can average reduce 26.9% of environmental impact, 19.7% of construction cost, and 10.2% of project duration. The method provides contractors with an efficient and practical decision support tool for environmentally friendly planning.

Keywords: construction contractor; environment-cost-time optimisation; particle swarm optimisation; discrete-event simulation; construction planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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