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Distributed coordination of project schedule changes using agent-based compensatory negotiation methodology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2003

KEESOO KIM ,
BOYD C. PAULSON ,
RAYMOND E. LEVITT ,
MARTIN A. FISCHER  and
CHARLES J. PETRIE
KEESOO KIM
Affiliation:
Daewoo Institute of Construction Technology, Daewoo E&C Co., Ltd., Kyonggi, Korea
BOYD C. PAULSON
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
RAYMOND E. LEVITT
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
MARTIN A. FISCHER
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
CHARLES J. PETRIE
Affiliation:
Stanford Networking Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
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Abstract

In the construction industry, projects are becoming increasingly large and complex, necessitating multiple subcontractors. Traditional centralized coordination techniques used by general contractors become insufficient as subcontractors perform most work and provide their own resources. When subcontractors cannot provide enough resources, they hinder their own performance, that of other subcontractors, and ultimately the entire project. Thus, projects need a new distributed coordination approach wherein all of the concerned subcontractors can respond to changes and reschedule a project dynamically. This paper presents a new distributed coordination framework for project schedule changes (DCPSC) that is based on an agent-based negotiation approach wherein software agents evaluate the impact of changes, simulate decisions, and give advice on behalf of the human subcontractors. A case example demonstrates the significance of the DCPSC. It compares two centralized coordination methodologies used in current practice to the DCPSC framework. We demonstrate that our DCPSC framework always finds a solution that is better than or equal to any of two centralized coordination methodologies.

Keywords

Compensatory NegotiationDistributed CoordinationProject SchedulingSoftware Agent
Type
Research Article
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , May 2003 , pp. 115 - 131
Copyright
2003 Cambridge University Press

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