JTRP Technical Reports Joint Transportation Research Program

Final report.PDFTech ReportFHWA/IN/JTRP-2011/09SPR-3400ConstructionConstruction managementConstruction schedulingRoad constructionInspectionRisk assessmentIndianaPurdue University. Joint Transportation Research ProgramMostafavi, AliAbraham, Dulcy M.Purdue University. Joint Transportation Research ProgramIndiana. Dept. of TransportationUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-Construction and MaintenanceNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-PLANNING AND POLICYUS Transportation CollectionIn the last decade, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has experienced an increase in their construction projects (e.g., INDOT\ue2\u20ac\u2122sconstruction spending was $789 million in 2006 and increased to $1,081.4 million in 2010); while the level of its in\ue2\u20ac?house inspection staff and resourceshas either remained the same or declined. There are different strategies to deal with the need for construction inspection resources and they may includestrategies such as outsourcing the inspection of construction activities and using quality control and quality assurance certification programs to reducethe need for in\ue2\u20ac?process inspection. One strategy that could reduce the inspection workload is prioritizing construction activities for inspection. However,reducing the number of inspections also has risks, such as functional failures and reduced design life, if defects are not identified before the work iscovered. Thus, available inspection resources should be allocated to the activities with significant risk consequences due to reduced inspection.The objective of this study was to: (1) evaluate the current inspection practices of INDOT and (2) develop a risk\ue2\u20ac?based inspection protocol to facilitateefficient allocation of available inspection resources to minimize the risks associated with reduced inspection. First, the current inspection practicesimplemented by INDOT, other State Departments of Transportation, and consulting firms were identified and compared. The comparison between theinspection practices revealed that there is consistency between INDOT\ue2\u20ac\u2122s and consultants\ue2\u20ac\u2122 and other State Departments of Transportation\ue2\u20ac\u2122s inspectionpractices.To develop a risk\ue2\u20ac?based inspection protocol, first, the risk consequences associated with reduced inspection were identified for different transportationconstruction activities, based on the data collected from 20 site visits to INDOT projects. These risk consequences include short and long\ue2\u20ac?term functionalfailures, reduced design life, reduced safety, and increased maintenance cost. Based on data collected from 23 state Departments of Transportation, 58engineers and inspectors from the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), and 20 inspection consultants in the Midwest, the subjective perceivedprobabilities associated with the occurrence of each risk consequence were encoded using fuzzy analysis. Using these subjective probabilities, the riskimpacts due to reduced inspection were derived. The construction activities subsequently were prioritized based on the risk impacts associated withreduced inspection into five priority levels: high, medium\ue2\u20ac?high, medium, medium\ue2\u20ac?low, and low. The greater the risk impacts were due to reducedinspection, the higher the priority would be for inspection of that activity. The study also included identification of value added of inspection and thecritical items to be watched for different activities related to transportation construction.Deliverables of this project include: (1) an inspection protocol, (2) an inspection staffing guide and (3) a list of pay items whose documentationrequirements need to be modified to enhance the documentation process. The inspection protocol created in this study could assist INDOT in efficientallocation of inspection resources to construction activities