Construction projects are always problematic and difficult to manage in certain stages. Management in construction industry has been characterized as being weak, insufficient, nebulous, backward and slow to react against changing conditions. This study aims to identify risk and cost managed in the change management of the construction projects. Quantitative study is organized and questionnaire as an instrument is used to collect the information from the construction experts in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Random sampling techniques is used to collect the data, 105 questionnaires are distributed and 90 ones are returned. The correlation analysis shows significant relationship between cost, risk and change management. The reliability test indicates satisfactory result to continue the questionnaire where Cronbach coefficient alpha value exceeds the level of 0.70. The study finds that design changes, client and contractor related changes are mostly occurred in change management of construction projects. Tendering on the basis of an incomplete design, which then changes during the course of the construction has been found as the key reason of the changes. Through a paper based exercise, site memorandums (SM), quoted rates (QR), variation orders (VO) and monthly payment certificates (MPC) are the activities managed by the engineers. Proper planning is the most leading change management in the risk management. Implementation of risk man-agement was found the applied risk management in practice to hindrances. Since this is very vast debated subject, the study has recommended further investigation to include consultant firms for better understanding of the design changes leading to the cost and risk associated.

In project management, a schedule is considered as a list a project's milestones, activities, and deliverables, normally with some start and finish time schedule, which are estimated by some information incorporated in the project schedule including resource allocation, budget, task duration, and linkages of dependencies and scheduled events. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the studies associated with project scheduling. The study uses Scopus database as a primary search engine and covers 3370 records over the period 1963-2019. The records are statistically analyzed and categorized in terms of different criteria. Based on the survey, "decision support systems" is the keyword which has carried the highest densities followed by heuristics methods. Among the most cited articles, papers published by researchers in Germany have received the highest citations (9084), followed by United States (7058) and Belgium with 4853 citations.

In order to manage a project seamlessly, there is a need to establish effective communication be-tween different departments and identify the risks in the project, determine the affected or influ-encing stakeholders, provide timely resources and logistics, and manage the available resources to make a framework for project implementation. In order to successfully complete the project it is also necessary to focus on approved costs, project completion time and quality within the specified range. Project management is the coordination among different parts of the project to achieve the main goals of the project and the stakeholders’ expectations. To achieve this, there are several standards and one of the most recognized standards is the Project Management Knowledge Facility (PMBOK), which has come with the assistance of Project Managers for professional, targeted and comprehensive management. PMBOK is not just a guideline and a methodology for project management. Building Information Modeling (BIM), a project man-agement methodology has been adopted in recent years to design a project integrated as a 3-D information model, which adds all project information in the various phases of the project to a 3-D information model. The purpose of this research is to gather some date from experts using some questionnaires in the area of project management to build an information modeling. The study determines that each of the basic BIM capabilities had positive effects on different domains of PMBOK knowledge. Moreover, using SAW analysis, the study suggests that BIM had the greatest impact on project integration management, and finally, the BIM general process model is introduced to implement each of the areas of knowledge.

The real-time scheduling of automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) in flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is observed to be highly critical and complex due to the dynamic variations of production requirements such as an imbalance of AGVs loading, the high travel time of AGVs, variation in jobs, and AGV routes to name a few. The output from FMS considerably depends on the effi-cient scheduling of AGVs in the FMS. The multi-objective scheduling decisions for AGVs by nature inspired algorithms yield a considerable reduction throughput time in the FMS. In this paper, investigations are carried out for the multi-objective scheduling of AGVs to simultaneously balance the workload of AGVs and to minimize the travel time of AGVs in the FMS. The multi-objective scheduling is carried out by the application of nature-inspired grey wolf optimization algorithm (GWO) to yield a balanced workload for AGVs and also to minimize the travel time of AGVs simultaneously in the FMS. The output yield of the GWO algorithm is compared with the results of benchmark problems from the literature. The resulting yield of the proposed algorithm for the multi-objective scheduling of AGVs is observed to outperform the existing algorithms for scheduling of AGVs.

This paper presents a review of human resource planning methods, related techniques, and their effects on cellular manufacturing systems (CMS). In-depth analysis has been conducted through a review of 43 dominant research papers available in the literature. The advantages, limitations, and drawbacks of material transferring methods have been discussed as well. The domains of the examined studies include some of the important problems in staff planning, such as worker assigning, hiring and firing, optimum number of workers, skilled workers, cross-functional experts, worker satisfaction and outsourcing. The results of this study can fill research gaps and clarify many related questions in CMS problems.

Cash flow models are one of the spotlights for evaluating a project. The actual data should be modeled then it could be used for the prediction process. In this paper, 996 airplane maintenance basis data are used as a database, and 119 similar data are chosen after clustering. The project is divided into 20 equal periods and first three periods are used for simulating the next point. The predicted data for each point is achieved by using of previous points from the beginning. The model is based on artificial neural network, and it is trained by three algorithms which are Genet-ic Algorithm (GA), Estimation of Distribution Algorithm (EDA), and hybrid GA-EDA method. Two dynamic ratios are used which are dividing the population into two halves, and the other is a ratio without dividing. The ratio would give a proportion to GA and EDA models in the hybrid algorithm, and then the hybrid algorithm could model the system more accurately. For each algorithm, three main errors are calculated which are mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean square error (MSE), and root means square error (RMSE). The best result is achieved for hybrid GA-EDA model without dividing the population and the MAPE, RMSE, and MSE values are %0.022, 28944.59 Dollars, and 837789503.79 Dollars, respectively.

Project management system (PMS) is broadly recognized as the effective management tool for several organizations. European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model provides some advantages for companies to be successful in current competitive environment. This paper is based on the combination of EFQM and Quality function deployment (QFD) in order to eval-uate a PMS in an aviation organization. Although, an integration of these models increases the system complexity, the implementation of EFQM-QFD helps us identify all noteworthy success factors of PMS within the organization. In addition, the current status of PMS performance is evaluated based on these factors. This study attempts to find out how organizations ought to be managed to take full advantage of PMS tools. This study uses a comprehensive questionnaire to find all critical factors influencing on the success of the organization. The method of this paper is implemented in an organization in aviation industry with several management departments.

Among different factors, correct scheduling is one of the vital elements for project management success. There are several ways to schedule projects including the Critical Path Method (CPM) and Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). Due to problems in estimating dura-tions of activities, these methods cannot accurately and completely model actual projects. The use of fuzzy theory is a basic way to improve scheduling and deal with such problems. Fuzzy theory approximates project scheduling models to reality by taking into account uncertainties in decision parameters and expert experience and mental models. This paper provides a step-by-step approach for accurate estimation of time and cost of projects using the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and expert views as fuzzy numbers. The proposed method included several steps. In the first step, the necessary information for project time and cost is estimated using the Critical Path Method (CPM) and the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). The second step considers the duration and cost of the project activities as the trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, and then, the time and cost of the project are recalculated. The duration and cost of activities are estimated using the questionnaires as well as weighing the expert opinions, averaging and defuzzification based on a step-by-step algorithm. The calculating procedures for evaluating these methods are applied in a real project; and the obtained results are explained.

Retrofitting technologies have helped to manage energy consumptions in residential, public and industrial buildings. However, understanding of the technical and economic considerations for selection of appropriate retrofitting technology is still evolving and divergent. Thus, this study presents a framework that combines techno-economic requirements as a means for evaluating the important retrofitting criteria and suitable lighting retrofit technologies for building projects. The framework is hinged on the unique features of entropy fuzzy and TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) methods. The analysis of the lighting technology selection was performed from technical, economic and techno-economic perspectives. During the application of the proposed framework, four lighting technologies (CFL, T5, E-ballast and T8-electronic) and nine techno-economic criteria were considered. The most and least important techno-economic criteria for the case study were net present value and electricity saved, respectively. The least and most suitable retrofitting technologies were T8-electronic and CFL, respectively, from techno-economic perspective. T5 and T8-electronic were identified as the most suitable lighting technologies from an economic and technical perspectives, respectively. This discrepancy in the results justified the need for the techno-economic approach for the retrofitting technologies evaluation.

The paper focuses on the application of TODIM (TOmada de Decisao Interativa Multicriterio), which means in Portuguese ‘interactive and multi-criteria decision making’) method in identify-ing the most attractive and affordable under-construction housing project in the city of Kolkata in India. In this decision making problem, 14 under-construction housing projects spanning in and around Kolkata are evaluated with respect to ten important criteria. The deployment of TODIM method can well be validated with respect to its ability to deal with both qualitative and quantitative criteria in the presence of risk factors. This method is also acknowledged to be a robust tool being almost unaffected by the varying values of the attenuation factor of losses. Using TODIM method, an under-construction housing project at Rajarhat in the eastern fringes of Kolkata city is selected as the optimal choice while meeting the requirements of investors, inhabitants and other stakeholders.