A CBR-BASED COST PREDICTION MODEL FOR THE DESIGN PHASE OF PUBLIC MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Korean public owners who order public multi-family housing construction projects have yet to gain access to a model for predicting construction cost. For this reason, their construction cost prediction is mainly dependent upon historic data and experience. In this paper, a cost-prediction model based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) in the design phase of public multi-family housing construction projects was developed. The developed model can determine the total construction cost by estimating the different Building, Civil, Mechanical, Electronic and Telecommunication, and Landscaping work costs. Model validation showed an accuracy of 97.56%, confirming the model's excellent viability. The developed model can thus be used to predict the construction cost to be shouldered by public owners before the design is completed. Moreover, any change orders during the design phase can be immediately applied to the model, and various construction costs by design alternative can be verified using this model. Therefore, it is expected that public owners can exercise effective design management by using the developed cost prediction model. The use of such an effective cost prediction model can enable the owners to accurately determine in advance the construction cost and prevent increase or decrease in cost arising from the design changes in the design phase, such as change order. The model can also prevent the untoward increase in the duration of the design phase as it can effectively control unnecessary change orders.