An Information-based Forecasting Model for Project Progress and Completion Using Bayesian Inference

In the past, several construction projects have exceeded their schedule resulting in financial losses to the owners; at present there are very few methods available to accurately forecast the completion date of a project. These nay be because of unforeseen outcomes that cannot be accounted for earlier and because of deficiency of proper tools to forecast completion date of said project. To overcome these difficulties, project managers may need a tool to predict the completion date at the early stage of project development. Bayesian Inference introduced in this paper is one such tool that can be employed to forecast project progress at all construction stages. Using this inference, project managers can combine an initially planned project progress (growth curve) with reported information from ongoing projects during the development, and in addition, dynamically revise this initial plan and quantify the uncertainty of completion date. This study introduces a theoretical model and proposes a mathematically information-based framework to forecast a project completion date that corresponds with the actual progress data and to monitor the modified uncertainties using Bayesian Inference.