Did you know… Accounting for project uncertainty

Marine construction projects have multiple sources of uncertainty. If these uncertainties or “project risks” are not accurately accounted for during planning and operation, their impacts on the project cannot be effectively managed, increasing overall costs and project duration.

Accounting for uncertainty in metocean conditions is central to the ForeCoast® Marine software. But, did you know that the software also accounts for variability associated with several other inherently uncertain project inputs, including:

• the duration of operations resulting from factors such as personnel experience,

• the performance and availability of plant and personnel,

• external supply-chain factors,

• marine traffic interference?

These sources of uncertainty are accounted for in the ForeCoast® Marine software by using a range of values (probability distributions) instead of a discrete value for each variable. These value ranges can be based on expert knowledge or on historical data from similar projects. The software then runs the simulated project over and over, each time using a different set of random values from the probability distributions.

The results of all these “Monte Carlo” simulations are then combined and analysed to generate a more realistic picture of the risk and uncertainty associated with a simulated project which not only predicts a range of outcomes but also predicts how likely the resulting outcomes are.

For more information, please contact Richard Lines.