An extended approach using failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) and weighting method for assessment of risk factors in the petrochemical industry

Determining the share of project cost progress is among the essential issues in the planning phases of financial management and earned value management (EVM). The performance baseline is set up in the planning phase to measure cost deviations during project execution. Then, an estimate at completion (EAC) is forecasted based on the current cost progress. Traditionally, EVM only focuses on the cost performance index (CPI) and does not address other important aspects, such as complexity and risk, which are critical for all organizational stakeholders. In most cases, the cost factor is used to determine the percentage of the project’s financial progress. Despite its superior formulation, EVM forecasts are still influenced by project risks and uncertainties. These factors lead to inconsistency between EAC results obtained through standard formulae. In this study, a framework was developed in which a relatively complete set of criteria has been evaluated and ranked to improve cost progress estimation. Such criteria can be used in the proposed multi-criteria decision-making technique for activities related to peroxide project operations. Expert opinions in several groups have been collected using the group decision-making method. The risk of activities was identified using the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method. In addition, the rank of activities was determined by the Multi-Objective Optimization based on Ratio Analysis based on G-number theory (G-MOORA) method with an uncertainty approach. Linguistic indicators of importance and necessity in the decision matrix G were fuzzified through triangular numbers. In the next step, these values were normalized to definite numbers, and the cost progress of the project was calculated. The output is a table proposing fixed weights, indicating that adding weighting dimensions changes the calculation of the project cost percentage of progress for well-known activities that can be widely used in construction and installation projects.