Grouping decomposition under constraints for design/build life cycle in project delivery system

The design/build project delivery system has been adopted in the construction industry for many years. The numerous iterations of activities (tasks) can result in a hierarchical structure that reflects the life cycle of this type of delivery system. The Design Structure Matrix (DSM) approach has been used for simplifying complex project activities by clarifying the relationships between activities through grouping. However, if there are a large number of coupled activities it can increase the design/build cycle time and it is difficult to apply grouping decomposition. This paper presents the Grouping Decomposition (GD) model that decomposes a large number of activities through grouping. It is used together with the K-means clustering algorithm which quantifies the relative coupling strength of the design/build activities. An example is proposed that demonstrates the GD modelling method. The results are compared with different grouping methods. These show that the proposed GD model performs well in partitioning and extremely well in clustering the coupled activities.

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