Dynamic networks for resilience-driven management of infrastructure projects

Abstract

The importance of ensuring the resilience (rapid adaptation to and recovery from disruptions) of infrastructure projects in modern societies can be hardly overstated. However, relying solely on currently available tools, managing such projects continues to be challenging because of their intrinsic complexities and dynamic spatiotemporal interdependencies. In this respect, the objective of the current study is to develop and apply a novel framework for resilience-driven management of infrastructure projects. By-design, the framework ensures project resilience through mitigating the risk of complex interdependence-induced vulnerabilities and subsequent cascade disruptions of project performance. The framework adopts a dynamic network modelling approach to simulate and analyze spatiotemporal contractor interdependence within infrastructure project sites. Subsequently, the framework harnesses the power of metaheuristic optimization techniques to proactively detect interdependence-induced vulnerabilities and rapidly adapt contractor networks accordingly. Such adaptation subsequently reflects on the work schedule—enhancing the overall project resilience to possible cascade disruptions of performance. Finally, to demonstrate the applicability of the developed framework, a several hundred million dollars power infrastructure overhaul project of high strategic importance was considered. Examining complex infrastructure projects through a network-level lens provides project managers with key managerial insights and deepened understanding of their projects' underlying interdependence-induced vulnerabilities and possible shortcomings of preset risk mitigation strategies. Overall, through its resilient-by-design approach to infrastructure projects, the developed framework empowers managers to ensure their projects absorb, recover from, and adapt to disruptive events persistently triggered by the dynamic risk environment of infrastructure projects.