A knowledge-based expert system to assess power plant project cost overrun risks

Preventing cost overruns of such infrastructure projects as power plants is a global project management problem. The existing risk assessment methods/models have limitations to address the complicated nature of these projects, incorporate the probabilistic causal relationships of the risks and probabilistic data for risk assessment, by taking into account the domain experts’ judgments, subjectivity, and uncertainty involved in their judgments in the decision making process. A knowledge-based expert system is presented to address this issue, using a fuzzy canonical model (FCM) that integrates the fuzzy group decision-making approach (FGDMA) and the Canonical model (i.e. a modified Bayesian belief network model). The FCM overcomes: (a) the subjectivity and uncertainty involved in domain experts’ judgment, (b) significantly reduces the time and effort…