Defining a Resilience Framework for Project Delivery
Start Date
8-11-2017 8:30 AM
End Date
8-11-2017 12:30 PM
Abstract
Resilience has been studied in diverse disciplines, including structures, transportation, and construction. The essence of resilience is commonly described as an ability to bounce back from some form of adversity, disruption, or change. Unlike the idea of risk-control that tends to fend off these “unwanted” activities, resilience embraces such disruptions and allows a transition from resisting to recharging before and after the disruptions kick in. This feature makes resilience truly desirable for construction project delivery where the disruptions in terms of risks and changes are ubiquitous. Overall project performance is still vulnerable to disruptions like design, budget, and political issues. Pre-planning alone is insufficient to address the risks that are inevitable or unpredictable. Instead, we need to build resilience into the project when the risk is looming, especially for project development as a whole. This research aims to fill a gap by defining resilience in project delivery and resilience measures for the project delivery process. Based on key properties found in the literature and through a case study, a resilience framework is defined in the context of construction project delivery. Resilience works in different modes – resistance and recovery – at different project stages which are accounted for in the framework. In addition, there are different dimensions of resilience that are specified according to the concerns at each project stage. Lastly, the framework attempts to create measures to assess the level of resilience at each project stage. The conceptual framework shows how resilience is incorporated within a typical project delivery process, including the resilience mode, the dimensions of resilience, and potential measures of resilience. The proposed framework is expected guide future research into the resilience assessment criteria that enable more resilient construction project delivery.
Defining a Resilience Framework for Project Delivery
Resilience has been studied in diverse disciplines, including structures, transportation, and construction. The essence of resilience is commonly described as an ability to bounce back from some form of adversity, disruption, or change. Unlike the idea of risk-control that tends to fend off these “unwanted” activities, resilience embraces such disruptions and allows a transition from resisting to recharging before and after the disruptions kick in. This feature makes resilience truly desirable for construction project delivery where the disruptions in terms of risks and changes are ubiquitous. Overall project performance is still vulnerable to disruptions like design, budget, and political issues. Pre-planning alone is insufficient to address the risks that are inevitable or unpredictable. Instead, we need to build resilience into the project when the risk is looming, especially for project development as a whole. This research aims to fill a gap by defining resilience in project delivery and resilience measures for the project delivery process. Based on key properties found in the literature and through a case study, a resilience framework is defined in the context of construction project delivery. Resilience works in different modes – resistance and recovery – at different project stages which are accounted for in the framework. In addition, there are different dimensions of resilience that are specified according to the concerns at each project stage. Lastly, the framework attempts to create measures to assess the level of resilience at each project stage. The conceptual framework shows how resilience is incorporated within a typical project delivery process, including the resilience mode, the dimensions of resilience, and potential measures of resilience. The proposed framework is expected guide future research into the resilience assessment criteria that enable more resilient construction project delivery.
