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Fahad Saud A. Allahaim

Fahad Allahain photo

BSc. (Arch & Bldg Sci),MSc (Bldg Serv & F.M., Hons)
Postgraduate Research Student




School of Civil Engineering, Room 360
Phone: +61 2 9351 4393
Fax: +61 2 9351 3343
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Research project - Causes of Cost Overrun of Infrastructure Projects and How to Improve Estimating Practice

Supervisor: Dr Li Liu

There are wide spread incidences of cost overruns in infrastructure projects around the world which represents significant, but avoidable, economic losses. Based on the type of the project, the average cost overrun for large-scale projects could range from 20.4% to 44.7% (Flyvbjerg et al., 2005).

There are many possible causes of cost overruns have been identified. According to Flyvbjerg et al. (2004) the two causes of cost overruns are; optimism bias and strategic misrepresentations. On the other hand, many studied have identified a variety of different reasons for cost overruns. For example, technical factors such as lack of experience, the size of the project, mistakes in design, overall price fluctuations, inaccurate estimations, and scope changes (Memon et al., 2011 and Love et al., 2011) have been found to impact on overrun.
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My proposal research will investigate the extent of cost overrun, develop a conceptual framework that explains how various causes impact on overruns and validate this framework through field studies. Further, I am trying to improve the accuracy of estimates from Reference Class Forecasting (RCF) by including sample specific relationships, which has been ignored in the RCF approach. RCF is increasingly being used for cost estimations of infrastructure projects. However, its underlying assumptions and validity are being questioned (Love et al. 2011).

Publications

  • Allahaim F., (2010), Design for Change: The Adaptable buildings Design (ABD) framework. Master of Design Sciences Thesis, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney.
  • Allahaim F., Alfaris A., and Leifer D., (2010), Towards Changeability: The Adaptable building Design (ABD) framework. The Fifth International Conference of Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD 2010), Fes, Morocco, October 19th to 21st, 2010.
  • Allahaim F., (2005), Da’arAlquran in Riyadh project. The Engineering Magazine (Arabic version). Saudi Council of Engineers. Issue No. 3, the 18th year.