Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects
Abstract Engineering projects are notoriously hard to complete on-time, with project delays often theorised to propagate across interdependent activities. Here, we use a novel dataset consisting of activity networks from 14 diverse, large-scale engineering projects to uncover network...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136881 |
| _version_ | 1826217771368710144 |
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| author | Santolini, Marc Ellinas, Christos Nicolaides, Christos |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Santolini, Marc Ellinas, Christos Nicolaides, Christos |
| author_sort | Santolini, Marc |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Abstract
Engineering projects are notoriously hard to complete on-time, with project delays often theorised to propagate across interdependent activities. Here, we use a novel dataset consisting of activity networks from 14 diverse, large-scale engineering projects to uncover network properties that impact timely project completion. We provide empirical evidence of perturbation cascades, where perturbations in the delivery of a single activity can impact the delivery of up to 4 activities downstream, leading to large perturbation cascades. We further show that perturbation clustering significantly affects project overall delays. Finally, we find that poorly performing projects have their highest perturbations in high reach nodes, which can lead to largest cascades, while well performing projects have perturbations in low reach nodes, resulting in localised cascades. Altogether, these findings pave the way for a network-science framework that can materially enhance the delivery of large-scale engineering projects. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:08:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/136881 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:08:54Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1368812023-02-28T21:33:22Z Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects Santolini, Marc Ellinas, Christos Nicolaides, Christos Sloan School of Management Abstract Engineering projects are notoriously hard to complete on-time, with project delays often theorised to propagate across interdependent activities. Here, we use a novel dataset consisting of activity networks from 14 diverse, large-scale engineering projects to uncover network properties that impact timely project completion. We provide empirical evidence of perturbation cascades, where perturbations in the delivery of a single activity can impact the delivery of up to 4 activities downstream, leading to large perturbation cascades. We further show that perturbation clustering significantly affects project overall delays. Finally, we find that poorly performing projects have their highest perturbations in high reach nodes, which can lead to largest cascades, while well performing projects have perturbations in low reach nodes, resulting in localised cascades. Altogether, these findings pave the way for a network-science framework that can materially enhance the delivery of large-scale engineering projects. 2021-11-01T14:33:58Z 2021-11-01T14:33:58Z 2021-07-08 2021-07-11T03:18:03Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136881 EPJ Data Science. 2021 Jul 08;10(1):36 PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00291-w Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer Berlin Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| spellingShingle | Santolini, Marc Ellinas, Christos Nicolaides, Christos Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title | Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title_full | Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title_fullStr | Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title_full_unstemmed | Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title_short | Uncovering the fragility of large-scale engineering projects |
| title_sort | uncovering the fragility of large scale engineering projects |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136881 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT santolinimarc uncoveringthefragilityoflargescaleengineeringprojects AT ellinaschristos uncoveringthefragilityoflargescaleengineeringprojects AT nicolaideschristos uncoveringthefragilityoflargescaleengineeringprojects |