Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework

Performing rework within the production system of construction is the most expensive waste that confronts organisations, with its causation yet to be fully understood in practice. Any effort to assess the risk of rework poses challenges due to limited information about its frequency and causes, rend...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Love, Peter, Matthews, J., Ika, L.A.
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2023
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP210101281
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94766
_version_ 1848765917662543872
author Love, Peter
Matthews, J.
Ika, L.A.
author_facet Love, Peter
Matthews, J.
Ika, L.A.
author_sort Love, Peter
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Performing rework within the production system of construction is the most expensive waste that confronts organisations, with its causation yet to be fully understood in practice. Any effort to assess the risk of rework poses challenges due to limited information about its frequency and causes, rendering the use of statistical models immeasurable. Research has shown that fast-and-frugal heuristics enable epistemic success under conditions of uncertainty and cognitive complexity–they are accurate, fast, and rely on limited information. Thus, this paper proposes the following research question: How can fast-and-frugal heuristics effectively assess the uncertainty of rework in construction? The theoretical framing of ecological rationality provides an environmental structure for bounded rationality to explore this question, enabling a person’s ‘adaptive toolbox’ of fast-and-frugal heuristics tailored for different epistemic and pragmatic decisions to be utilised. Situations during the construction of a transport infrastructure mega-project (>AU$18 billion) where there was profound uncertainty surrounding rework are presented. The heuristics, intuitively drawn from an individual’s adaptive toolbox used to form judgments to assess the uncertainty of rework, are identified. The theoretical and practical implications of the paper are discussed before presenting suggestions for future research to help build a robust adaptive toolbox to be utilised for assessing the uncertainty of rework in construction.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:42:52Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-94766
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:42:52Z
publishDate 2023
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-947662024-05-07T06:41:05Z Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework Love, Peter Matthews, J. Ika, L.A. Performing rework within the production system of construction is the most expensive waste that confronts organisations, with its causation yet to be fully understood in practice. Any effort to assess the risk of rework poses challenges due to limited information about its frequency and causes, rendering the use of statistical models immeasurable. Research has shown that fast-and-frugal heuristics enable epistemic success under conditions of uncertainty and cognitive complexity–they are accurate, fast, and rely on limited information. Thus, this paper proposes the following research question: How can fast-and-frugal heuristics effectively assess the uncertainty of rework in construction? The theoretical framing of ecological rationality provides an environmental structure for bounded rationality to explore this question, enabling a person’s ‘adaptive toolbox’ of fast-and-frugal heuristics tailored for different epistemic and pragmatic decisions to be utilised. Situations during the construction of a transport infrastructure mega-project (>AU$18 billion) where there was profound uncertainty surrounding rework are presented. The heuristics, intuitively drawn from an individual’s adaptive toolbox used to form judgments to assess the uncertainty of rework, are identified. The theoretical and practical implications of the paper are discussed before presenting suggestions for future research to help build a robust adaptive toolbox to be utilised for assessing the uncertainty of rework in construction. 2023 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94766 10.1080/09537287.2023.2257178 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP210101281 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ fulltext
spellingShingle Love, Peter
Matthews, J.
Ika, L.A.
Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title_full Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title_fullStr Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title_full_unstemmed Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title_short Fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
title_sort fast-and-frugal heuristics: an exploration into building an adaptive toolbox to assess the uncertainty of rework
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP210101281
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94766