Abstract—Diverse attempts have shown that variability is a well-known problem in construction projects, which leads to a general deterioration of project performance on dimensions of both project cost and planning efficiency. The main aim of lean management is to eliminate any forms of waste from construction process and then to stabilize the work flow of the process. The strategy of buffer management is the key-play making in the lean goal, which able to absorb variability from the construction process. Inefficient sizing buffers often results in unnecessarily added time (waste), and consequently, fails to protect the project schedule performance. So, this work focuses on developing a Fuzzy Logic-based an appropriate buffers size evaluation algorithm, to match the imprecise nature of the construction process. Besides, as common, considering the level of uncertainty, the characteristics of the activity are taken into account. The assessment of the reasoning of the model performance is achieved through simulation of a set of scenarios. The research argues that the buffer size is incompletely and inefficiently evaluated in the absence of any variables.

Index Terms—buffer management, fuzzy logic, scheduling, lean management, variability

Cite: Moataz Awad M. Farag, "A Bridge between Increasing Reliability and Reducing Variability in Construction Work Flow: A Fuzzy-Based Sizing Buffer Model," Journal of Advanced Management Science, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 287-294, December 2014. doi: 10.12720/joams.2.4.287-294