An Approach for Risk Prioritization in Construction Projects Using Analytic Network Process and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory

Construction projects always deal with different types of risks such as financial problems, legal factors, availability of resources and other issues during the project lifecycle. According to the type, size and complexity of the project, the number and intensity of risks could be different and many projects cannot reach the project goals due to exposure to multiple risks. This study aims to propose a hybrid DEMATEL-ANP model for risk prioritization in construction projects and the originality of the work comes from its ability to consider interdependencies between risk factors. The first stage of model applied Delphi method to use experts’ judgments for risk identification. The second stage used Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to define the interdependencies’ relative intensity among the risks. Afterwards, Analytic Network Process (ANP) method is used in the third stage to assess the relative importance of the risk factors to define risk priorities in project. A case study of oil pipeline project is reported to indicate efficiency and performance of the proposed model. The results indicated that the proposed methodology could successfully reveal the important risk factors and define the interdependencies between them in the case study. On the whole, the proposed methodology can be considered as an efficient approach for risk assessment in construction projects.