1

M.E.A ENGINEERING COLLEGE,

PERINTHALMANNA
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
(Affiliated to University of Calicut)

CONSTRUCTION DEFECT MANAGEMENT

A FAULT TREE APPROACH

GUIDED BY

SUBMITTED BY

AJEESH

MAHABOOB .C

AST. PROFESSOR IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

CEAMECE022

MEA ENGINEERING COLLEGE

PERINRTHALMANNA

ABSTRACT
Defects are inevitable in the construction industry. Therefore, it is crucial that there are
techniques to check errors and defects, and suggest rectification measures so as to reduce project
cost and cope up with the schedule. This report has described one such developed technique, i.e.
Fault Tree Approach and Importance Measures. An explicit study about the construction of fault
trees, identification of latent conditions and its quantification has been done. Proper
mathematical modelling of the contribution of latent conditions and implementation of risk
impact curves, in order to make a comparative study of the significance of latent conditions has
made the technique easy to understand. Latent conditions can thus be found to contribute to the
defective act either based on frequency or magnitude. The feasibility of fault trees with risk IMs
was tested by applying them to defect instances found in four residential construction projects in
Dubai.
Keywords: defects in construction, fault tree, importance measures, latent conditions.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
NO.

TITLE

PAGE
NO.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Swiss Cheese Model

1.2 System Dynamics Model

1.3 Fault Trees and Importance Measures

FAULT TREES AND IMPORTANCE MEASURES

2.1 Formulation of Defect Taxonomy Using Fault Trees

2.2 Fault-Tree Construction

2.3 Weighing a Latent Conditions Effect

12

2.4 Quantification of Defect Causes Using Risk IMs

14

CONCLUSION

19

REFERENCES

20

INDRODUCTON
A defect maybe defined as "a failing or shortcoming in the function, performance, statutory or
user requirements of a building, and might manifest itself within the structure, fabric, services or
other facilities of the affected building". Construction defect is a very common problem which
has significant influence in the degradation of the project. Researchers have estimated that
defects deplete a direct cost that ranges from 2% to 10%, and an indirect cost that is
approximately five times the direct cost. A defect in construction shall not always have a single
cause. It might be the result of a combination of several interrelated causes, forming a defect's
pathway. Several studies have been conducted around the globe to formulate techniques to
analysis the causes and mechanisms of construction defects. The intention of this paper is to
introduce a recently published study in this field using fault trees and risk importance measures.
Besides, a brief introduction to other relevant studies in the field has also been done.
Researchers around the globe have worked upon several distinct concepts inorder to analyze,
quantify and interpret defects in construction management. After extensive studies corrective
measures and related implications have been suggested to reduce errors to great extent.

1.1 Swiss Cheese Model

The Swiss Cheese model

proposed by Reason in 1990,

provides a framework that

conceptualizes the sequential nature of defect causes, and traces a defect to one or more of the
four descending layers in a system: organizational influences, defective supervision,
preconditions for defective acts, and the defective acts. Reason analogizes these defense layers as
slices of a Swiss cheese, and analogizes system weaknesses as holes piercing these slices. As the
number of holes increases, and their sizes (magnitudes) increase, more access is provided for
defects to penetrate, which increases the systems susceptibility to defects. Reasonsmodel
distinguishes between the root causes and the direct causes. Holes found at the first three levels
(i.e., organizational influences, defective supervision, and preconditions for defective acts)
represent the root causes. These are also called latent conditions created by higher echelons of
the organization owing to risky decisions, practices, or circumstances.

1.2 Systemics Model Dynam

Several studies have attempted to achieve these necessities using system dynamics (SD)
modeling. SD is a powerful approach for demonstrating a systems complexity, which assumes
that variables are linked in circular processes, forming feedback loops. Nonetheless, SD focuses
more on simulating the ongoing, self-sustaining, dynamic processes of a system, rather than a
particular output (e.g.,defective act). In other words, SD seeks to understand the structure of the
relationships driving the levels of performance over time, rather than predicting outcomes
occurring at a given point in time. Therefore, despite SD models profoundness in demonstrating
the nonlinearity of sequences, the quantification of independent variables (i.e., latent conditions)
with respect to their influence on other dependent variables (i.e., defective acts) is required for a
more accurate quantitative analysis.

1.3 Fault Trees and Importance Measures

This method exploits the benefits of fault tree analysis in defect analysis in the construction
industry. The technique puts into consideration the proportional involvement of potential defect
causing events or latent conditions leading to the defective action. The technique is further
enhanced by the use Importance measures to explain the magnitude and frequency of occurrence
of the latent conditions. This topic shall further be explained in the subsequent chapters.
The Swiss Cheese model proposed by Reason in 1990, provides a framework that
conceptualizes the sequential nature of defect causes, and traces a defect to one or more of the
four descending layers in a system: organizational influences, defective supervision,
preconditions for defective acts, and the defective acts. Reason analogizes these defense layers as
slices of a Swiss cheese, and analogizes system weaknesses as holes piercing these slices. As the
number of holes increases, and their sizes (magnitudes) increase, more access is provided for
defects to penetrate, which increases the systems susceptibility to defects. Reasonsmodel
distinguishes between the root causes and the direct causes. Holes found at the first three levels
(i.e., organizational influences, defective supervision, and preconditions for defective acts)
represent the root causes. These are also called latent conditions created by higher echelons of
the organization owing to risky decisions, practices, or circumstances.

2. FAULT TREES AND IMPORTANCE MEASURES

As far as the construction industry is concerned, a defect is an outcome of a number of causes
interrelated to each other. For example, a worker's lack of skill alone cannot be the cause of a
particular defect. This cause can be compensated with good supervision of the site engineer,
thereby eliminating a potential cause of a defect. This technique assumes that removing the most
influential cause shall significantly decrease the risk of occurrence of the defect. Accordingly,
referring to the example above this technique emphasizes the importance of rectifying the factor
among the two, i.e. lack skill of worker and poor supervision by the site engineer, leading to the
defect.
This techniques considers two fundamental notions, namely the frequency (i.e. the number of
risks) of pathways causing the defect and the magnitude (i.e. the impact) of the contribution they
provide to the formation of these pathways. The project managers can rank the significance of
defect causes and prioritize their managerial efforts soon after the frequencies and magnitudes of
defect causes are quantified.
This method adopts a fault tree approach to formulate the taxonomy of defect causes, and risk
importance measures (IMs) for quantifying the frequency and magnitude of the identified causes.
The paper then discusses about the construction of a fault tree, consequently allowing the
application of risk IMs to quantify the frequencies and magnitudes of the identified causes. A
brief description of this technique applied tofour residential buildings in Dubai is also discussed.
2.1 Formulation of Defect Taxonomy Using Fault Trees

A fault-tree approach is used for identifying latent conditions (i.e., root causes) and their
complex effects on defective acts (i.e., direct causes). Latent condition can better comprehended
as a 'potential cause' which alone or in combination with several latent conditions might lead to a
defective act. The capability of this approach in aggregating all possible combinations of latent
conditions that trigger a defective act, which in turn can be used to form a unified predictive risk
model, makes this

technique suitable for the analysis. Such combinations of latent conditions can normally be found
when investigating numerous instances of a particular defective act. The fault tree consists of
three main components(shown in Fig.1): basic events(latent conditions; drawn in circles), subsets
(sampled defective-act instances, which consist of a combination of intersecting latent
conditions; drawn in rectangles), and the top event (the defective-act type investigated; drawn in
a rectangle). The latent conditions that intersect to trigger an instance are expressed using AND
gates, representing the multiplication rule of probability, and all possible defective-act instances
are expressed using OR gates, representing the addition rule of probability. In theory, this means
that the top event (i.e., defective act) will occur if any of the given subsets occur, which consist
of possible interrelated latent-condition combinations. In terms of the Swiss Cheese model,
events can be viewed as the circumstances of passing that within the three primary defense
layers: preconditions for defective acts, defective supervision, and organizational influences; and
subsets can be viewed as the instances in which a defect risk has penetrated through these holes
to the defective acts defense layer (i.e., the final layer before defect). Fig.2 shows an example of
the three possible pathways that lead to a top event, formulated as instruction contravention.

Fig. 1. Proposed fault-tree components

Fig. 2. Example of defective-act generation (Swiss Cheese Model)

2.2 Fault-Tree Construction
As a stratum for constructing the fault tree, the risk of the top event (R) will be set to unity as
shown in the following equation:

where Ij = probability of an instance;

R = overall defective acts risk.
The overall risk value will be divided equally among the subsets, assuming that all subsets (i.e.,
sampled instances) have an equal probability to cause a defective act:

This assumption is based on the frequentist philosophy, which infers that the probability of an
event (or outcome) is the proportion of times the event would occur in a long run of repeated
experiments, while fixing parameters to a constant (e.g., 1/n) during this repeatable random
sampling process. This means that riskier combinations of defect causes (i.e., a subset) shall
theoretically manifest more frequently in a random sample, and thus spontaneously attain a
higher risk value (I > 1/n) throughout this additive process. Although it may not be common to

10

have identical combinations of defect causes (i.e., subsets) appearing in a data set, according to
the frequentist philosophy, it is reasonable to consider each subset to be as risky as its peers
because a random sample in theory provides them all an equal chance to take a part of the overall
risk model. The frequentist inference, however, has always been associated with a challenging
inquiry of how long shall the long run of repeated experiments be? In other words, what is an
appropriate sample size? This emphasizes on the fact that a larger sample of analyzed defects
shall make this method more accurate in modeling the reality of defect pathways, which the
industry suffers from.
Latent conditions within a particular subset of I do not necessarily have an equal probabilistic
value (L), although their product should always equal 1/n. This is a critical aspect of the riskmodel construction,

Basic events can alternatively be represented in a general matrix, for a convenient notational
system:

where L = probabilistic value of a latent condition (i.e., an event);

m = number of all identified latent conditions in the model (is row);
n = number of sampled defective-act incidents (js column).
Fig. 3 shows an example of using a fault-tree model in analyzing a defective act. The modeled
defective act is an instruction contravention, and the latent-condition combinations that trigger it
vary among the three sampled instances. This example is also represented in terms of the Swiss
Cheese model in Fig. 2. A method for computing the latent conditions probabilistic values (Lij)
will be discussed in detail In
the following section. From this example, a general matrix and the risk formula are identified as
follows, where noninvolved basic events are given a value of one :

11

Fig.3. Example of Fault-tree formulation for defective-act generation

The inadequate supervision (L31, L32, and L33) latent condition clearly contributes to all instances,
and therefore, if eliminated (i.e., set to zero), it would reduce the overall defective-act risk to
zero. The second most recurrent latent condition is schedule pressure (L11 and L12), which has the
capacity of reducing the overall risk to one-third if removed, as it appears in two-thirds of the
sampled instances. Finally, each of the other three latent conditions, namely, competence
limitation (L21), poor coordination (L43), and supervisory violations (L53), can merely reduce the
overall risk to two-

12

thirds because they only appear in one-third of the sampled instances. Such risk-reduction (RR)
capacity is one method of measuring the influence of latent conditions, which will be discussed
with other importance indicators at a later stage in this paper.
2.3 Weighing a Latent Conditions Effect
The model construction described in the preceding section is contingent upon setting the overall
risk value to one and instance probabilities to 1/n, forming a headwater for all latent-condition
parameters. Therefore, the critical aspect of the risk model is to distribute these parameters
according to the latent conditions influences on their provoked instances (i.e., defective acts). To
explain how these parameters are attributed, the first instance (I1) from the aforementioned
example is considered. Assume that an individual committed the defective act (i.e., instruction
contravention) owing to the project schedule being pressurized, which negatively affected their
cognitive functioning. In addition, the propensity for the instance to occur increased because the
individual lacked the required experience, knowledge, and skill to perform the task the worker
was allocated to complete. Furthermore, the site managers responsible for supervising the work
were not allocating adequate time for doing so. In conclusion, a combination of three latent
conditions is identified in this instance: schedule pressure (ij = 11), competence limitation (ij =
21), as well as inadequate supervision (ij = 31), which have different extents of influence on the
occurrence of the defective act. Thus, to quantitatively address such differences in their effect, an
investigator shall obtain the best approximation to apportion the weight (w ij) of each latent
condition according to their impact on the incidence. The weight (w ij) is a percentage distribution
that can be estimated by a practitioner who is well informed of the project systems conditions,
m

where 0 wij 1 and

w
i=1

=1. For example, assume that allocations were distributed such

that weights w11, w21, and w31 are 50%, 30%, and 20%, respectively. These weights (w ij) do not
yet relate to the overall risk (R 0) and need to be converted into probabilistic measures (Lij) that
m

take a parametric position in the fault tree, where their product (

L
i=1

ij

) should be equal to the

13

probability of the instance (1/n). Therefore, the latent conditions probability parameters (L ij) are
obtained as follows:

In the aforementioned example, three instances (n = 3) were incorporated into the model. Thus,
using the aforementioned equation, the values of the weights (w 11 = 0.5, w21 = 0.3, and w31 = 0.2)
can be converted to their probabilistic parameters (L 11=0.58, L21 = 0.72, and L31 = 0.8), so that
their product (0.58 0.72 0.8) equals one-third. According to the rule of probability, this
product represents the intersection area of magnitudes. The most important latent condition has
the least probability and vice versa because the intersection area ( I i = 1/n ) is less proportional to
higher magnitudes than lower magnitudes. The importance of a latent condition should be
viewed as the sensitivity of the intersection area (i.e., instance probability) to changes made in its
magnitude. Thus, the latent conditions with lower probabilistic values are evidently more
influential than those with higher probabilistic values (e.g., compare the changes of I i when
setting each Lij to zero or one).
Having identified how the weight of a latent conditions effect (w ij) is converted into
a probabilistic parameter (Lij), a method is still needed to primarily obtain w. As mentioned
earlier, a project participant may estimate percentage distributions for wij. For this purpose, each
latent conditions importance is assessed separately according to a rating (s) of one through five,
which can also be represented as a Likert scale. Therefore, the percentage distributions of the
latent conditions effects can be proportionally attributed according to their ratio from the ratings
sum as follows:

Proceeding with the aforementioned example, suppose that schedule pressure was rated s 11 = 5/5,
competence limitation was rated s21 =3/5, and inadequate supervision was rated s31 = 2/5.
From the aforementioned equation, the percentage distributions of the latent conditions effects
are as follows:
w11 = 50%, w21=30%, and w31= 20%, and L11= 0.58, L21= 0.72, and L31= 0.8.

14

Therefore, the basic events probability equation can be rearranged

as follows:

To sum up, the overall risk equation can be expressed as

2.4 Quantification of Defect Causes Using Risk IMs

Furthermore, defining the overall risk model when the probability of latent condition Lij is set at
its critical values (zero and one) establishes a continuous, linear relationship between L ij,x and
Rij,x, with a slope equal to the Birnbaum importance (BI). Such a relationship is termed by
Veseley et al. (1983) as the risk-impact curve. In this case, the risk-impact curve has a unique
property where its y-axis intercept (when Lij,x = 0) equals the inverse of the RR worth (R), and
when Lij,x equals unity, the general IM attains the RAW value (R +). Fig. 4 illustrates the IM
properties stated in the preceding text.
Measure
Birnbaum
importance

FusselVeseley

Risk reduction

Abbreviation

Implication to defects

The potential of a latent condition to

strengthen or weaken the defense-indepth of a system . This can also be
viewed as a measure of the size (i.e.,
magnitude) of the holes.
The fractional contribution of a latent
condition to the existence of the
defective act. This can also be viewed
as a measure of how frequently a hole
contributes to the top event.
The capacity of a latent condition to
reduce the overall risk when certainly
removed

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Risk

achievement

worth

Risk reduction worth

The ratio of the overall risk with the

latent condition set to one, the overall
risk stratum. In the study model, it is
the maximum increase in risk imposed
if the latent condition is certainly
functioning.
The ratio of the overall risk stratum
(one) to the overall risk with the latent
condition certainly removed
Table 1. Importance Measures and their implications

Each of the aforementioned IMs defines the importance of a latent condition from different
criteria; therefore, they provide different managerial suggestions. For example, if the
managements priority is to devote efforts toward eliminating latent conditions that are most
effective in strengthening the defense in depth, then BI rankings should be used. By contrast, if
the managements priority is to devote efforts toward eliminating latent conditions that contribute
the most to the existence of defective act, then FV rankings should be used. In simpler terms, the
BI measure is an
indicator of magnitude and the FV measure is an indicator of frequency. Although the magnitude
is technically affected by frequency, these two indicators provide different managerial
conclusions. In terms of the Swiss Cheese model, the distinction between the FV and BI
measures highlights the fact that larger holes, as ranked by the BI measure, do not necessarily
indicate that they contribute to defective acts the most. Rather, holes may have higher
contributions, as ranked by the FV measure, if they more frequently intersect with other latent
conditions, despite their large size. Nonetheless, merely closing small holes may decrease the
risk of the defective act, but not the systems susceptibility to it. The BI measure
complementarily indicates the sensitivity of the system to the existence of latent conditions. By
that means, the FV and BI measures are sufficient for characterizing the importance of latent
conditions, especially because the FV measure is proven to be equal to the RR measure in this
case.
Note that these IMs are traditionally used to measure a singular basic event ij at a certain time.
However, the concern in this study is the integrated importance of multiple basic events that are
found in multiple js and consist of a particular latent condition i. This can be achieved by
considering the evaluated latent condition i group (e.g., Li1, Li2, Li3, Li4, Li5,....,Lij) as a singular

16

measure parameter Li. Therefore, R+i , Ri , and consequently all aforementioned IMs are defined
throughout, setting all probabilities of the latent condition i group to one and zero. IMs may yield
unrealistic results if the basic events of the evaluated group exist more than once per subset. This
causes the magnitude to depend on the number of basic events appearing in a subset, or an AND
gate, rather than their actual importance.

Latent condition (Li)

FV

BI

Schedule Pressure (L1)

0.66

1.47

Competence Limitation (L2)

0.33

1.47

Inadequate supervision (L3)

1.16

Poor coordination (L4)

0.33

0.81

Excessive overtime (L5)

0.33

0.37

Table 2. FV and BI of Latent Conditions

17

Fig 4. Risk-Impact curve and relationships among IMs

Considering the latent-condition parameters provided in the risk model shown in Fig.
3, the FV and BI measures are summarized in Table 2, and the risk importance curves are shown
in Fig. 5. As mentioned earlier in discussions regarding Fig. 3, inadequate
supervision is the latent condition that most frequently contributes to the given defective act
because it appears in all instances (i.e., intersects with all latent conditions). Therefore, it attained
the highest FV score of one, which indicates that removing it will result in reducing the overall
risk by 100%. However, this does not mean that the system is extremely safe, because other
latent conditions that the system is still suffering from exist. Rather, it means that the defect will
not occur as long as it is ensured that the rest of the latent conditions are not combined with it, in
a sense that none of the possible defective-act pathways are allowed to continue their journey.
By contrast, schedule pressure is the latent condition that has the highest magnitude and thus
attains the highest BI score of 1.47, shown as the steepest slope in Fig. 5. This indicates that it is
the most dangerous symptom, which has the highest potential to cause a defect if left dormant. In
other words, schedule pressure only requires a

18

The model construction previously described aims to distribute the probabilistic parameters so
that the overall risk R0 equals unity at all times. The primary objective of this approach is to
establish a reference in which the importance of latent conditions is compared with each other. In
this regard, risk IMs are used to quantify the significance of a latent condition. IMs are
classically used in risk-informed applications in the nuclear industry to characterize how a basic
event (e.g., component failure or human error) results in an accident. For example, nuclear power
plants are usually designed according to the defense-in-depth principle, in which a single
component failure would not yield an accident, but rather a combination of several events yields
an accident. Similarly, a latent condition in a construction project may not trigger a defective act
unless combined with other latent conditions. In addition, some latent conditions have more
propensities to weaken the systems defense in depth than others. IMs can thus be used to rank
the significance of latent conditions from different aspects so that further defect management
efforts can be prioritized.
Several IMs are available and each contains different information, and therefore has their own
use. One common feature amongst IMs is that they all consider the overall risk R state in their
equations when latent condition Lij is critical (i.e., set to one or zero). Table 1 summarizes the
most commonly used IMs. In this case, because the risk stratum R0 is set to one at all times, RR
equals the FusselVeseley (FV) measure (i.e., RR=FV = 1 R) and the risk achievement worth
(RAW) equals R.
slight impact of other latent conditions to result in a defective act. The difference between
inadequate supervision, which attained the highest FV score, and schedule pressure, which
attained the highest BI score, is also represented in Fig. 2. Inadequate
supervision can be visualized as the hole through which most defect pathways pass. By contrast,
schedule pressure can be visualized as the hole that provides the largest access for defects to
penetrate. In terms of system improvements, the removal of schedule pressure will yield the best
results because the occurrence of the defective act is most sensitive to its existence. Finally, the
results of the other three latent conditions do not exhibit significant importance, as expected.

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3. CONCLUSION
The ability to understand defect causes is a vital prerequisite for preventing and eliminating
defect causes. A fault tree approach associated with IMs, has been discussed in the paper based
on studies conducted by Aljassmi and Han (2013). The technique implemented in the paper was
inspired by several studies conducted in the past in this regard, especially the Swiss cheese
model proposed by Reason in 1990. An explicit study about the construction of fault trees,
identification of latent conditions and its quantification has been done. Proper mathematical
modelling of the contribution of latent conditions and implementation of risk impact curves, in
order to make a comparative study of the significance of latent conditions has made the
technique easy to understand. Latent conditions can thus be found to contribute to the defective
act either based on frequency or magnitude. The feasibility of fault trees with risk IMs was tested
by applying them to defect instances found in four residential construction projects in Dubai. The
technique has great potentials and it is high time that such effective management are
implemented in the Indian scenario as construction defects have claimed to shoot high the project
costs in the construction industry.

20

REFERENCES
1. Aljassmi, H. , Sangwon Han, "Analysis of Causes of Construction Defects Using Fault
Trees and Risk Importance Measures", Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management- July 2013, ASCE Library
2. P.E.D. Love, G.D. Holt, L.Y. Shen, H. Li , Z. Irani, "Using systems dynamics to better
understand change and rework in construction project management systems",
International Journal of Project Management 20 (2002) 425436
3. M. van der Borst, H. Schoonakker, "An overview of PSA importance measures",
Reliability Engineering & System Safety 72 (2001) 241-245, Elsevier
4. Aljassmi ,H., Sangwon Han, M.ASCE, Steven Davis," Project Pathogens Network:
New Approach to Analyzing Construction-Defects-Generation Mechanisms", Journal of
Construction Engineering and Management-2014-140 , ASCE Library