The College of Engineering at the University of Baghdad hosted the public defense of the Master’s student Ahmed Abdul Majeed Saleh from the Civil Engineering Department for his thesis titled ” Investigating the Risk Factors of Road Projects in Al-Anbar Governorate” on Sunday, December 15, 2024, in Dr. Khalid Shaker Hall in the Civil Engineering Department, under the supervision of Lecturer. Dr. Mustafa Abdullah Hilal.
This study aims to examine the numerous elements that influence roads construction projects, focusing specifically on the outcomes of different types of risks. Therefore, this study focused on 94 types of risks that were identified through previous studies, which were divided into five groups. The data for each group was processed separately, and the questionnaire process was conducted for 103 people from different categories related to road projects, including consulting engineers, designers, company owners, and site engineers. The relative importance index (RII) approach was initially used to determine the risk-preferred rank. For more accuracy, the following method employs the Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS) method, which determines the most beneficial option by considering risk factors. Ultimately, the evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) approach has been created. This method accurately detects the specific influential elements.
Based on the time needed for decision-making, the findings suggest that the danger of change orders is a substantial obstacle to the implementation of road construction improvements in Iraq. The EDAS technique identified five key crucial factors: change orders for job implementation with impact of 0.62, the influence on cash flow with impact of 0.47, the availability of skilled labor and equipment with impact of 0.46, the cost of equipment with impact of 0.46 and finally, the impact of clans was 0.39.
Based on the results, recommendations were made regarding the necessity of finding means to increase the accuracy of plans and quantity schedules in order to reduce change gaps, as well as finding all means that help maintain the flow of financial liquidity in projects to ensure that it is not delayed. In addition, the availability of the workers and materials, their costs, the skills of workers and their ability, these are axioms in the management of road projects, which every road project management must place at the forefront of considerations, and there must be clear statistics on the equipment, workers availability and skilled workers who can be used in constructing roads in the governorate of Anbar. Finally, by using the risk assessment method based on the Likert Scale applied and observed that the change order was the main cause of overrun problems in road construction projects. Also, the cash flow observed as another effective risk factor.
After the scientific discussion by the esteemed members of the examination committee, listening to the researcher defense, and evaluating the thesis, the researcher was awarded a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering/Engineering Management.
