Mitigation strategies against cascading failures within a project activity network
Name
42001_2021_Article_123.pdf
Size
2.02 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
86fd6c7a7bc93983e2a39d1025fa0b5a
Author(s)
Nicolaides, Christos
Date Issued
June 18, 2021
Journal
Journal of Computational Social Science
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Successful on-time delivery of projects is a key enabler in resolving major societal challenges, such as wasted resources and stagnated economic growth. However, projects are notoriously hard to deliver successfully, partly due to their interconnected and temporal complexity which makes them prone to cascading failures. Here, we develop a cascading failure model and test it on a temporal activity network, extracted from a large-scale engineering project. We evaluate the effectiveness of six mitigation strategies, in terms of the impact of task failure cascading throughout the project. In contrast to theoretical arguments, our results indicate that in the majority of cases, the temporal properties of the activities are more relevant than their structural properties in preventing large-scale cascading failures. In practice, these findings could stimulate new pathways for designing and scheduling projects that naturally limit the extent of cascading failures.
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-021-00123-x
