Simultaneous management and control on cost and time in the project development through fuzzy logic to risk management

Abstract

Projects are a series of unique activities defined in order to achieve a unique goal. Before implementation, project activities to be conducted in future are predicted and the initial timetable of the project is prepared. Given the fact that future is vague and unclear, risks and uncertainties will inevitably exist in the implementation of projects because human is unable to precisely foresee the future. Projects are planned according to estimations obtained from little information about the future conditions of projects. Considering the fact that the planning involve uncertainty, time delays and costs imposed by uncertainties are unavoidable .Risk management is a project management standard used extensively. The effects of the risk of time and cost were simultaneously investigated in one of the huge, national projects in Iran, namely the water supply project from Persian Gulf to the mineral industries of south eastern Iran, which involves the largest water desalination system in the Middle East. Information pertaining to risk management was gathered, and fuzzy number theory, fuzzy logic, software, and information analysis and combination were employed. A model was put forward including 7 stages and 20 steps in SPSS, and MATLAB was also utilized in civil projects for increasing planning accuracy. The results differed from those of existing, traditional methods, such as the method of probability of occurrence * degree of impact, for risk management.