An expert system for quantifying the impact of change orders on project performance

Changes at different phases of a construction project are inevitable due to a multitude of reasons such as design changes, design errors, additions to scope, or unknown conditions that may arise due to resource limitations and the uniqueness of the project. For each change, contractors are entitled to an equitable adjustment to the base contract price and schedule. It is commonly accepted that change orders can have adverse effects on project performance, but these effects are difficult to quantify and manage, and they frequently lead to disputes. Most work in change order management focuses on labor productivity and does not pay as much attention to the quantification and management of the impact of change orders in regard to overall project performance in terms of time and cost. This paper describes a prototype expert system named QUICOPP that implements these ideas. The knowledge used in the system was acquired through a questionnaire survey administered to the contractors in North Cyprus construction industry. A list of factors that describe the adverse effects of change orders on project performance have been identified based on the survey, and this list of factors was used to develop a quantitative model of how different change orders affect the time and cost of a project. Our system provides a cost-effective means for handling change orders through all phases of a project such that construction operations can continue with the least amount of interruption that usually results from of disputes between different parties involved in a project.