This study thesis is the result of the study group B.218 working process from the period of 1st
September 2012 to 10th January 2013. This Master thesis is produced by two students from two
different educations. The educations are “Master of Science and Technology in Civil Engineering
with specialization in Management in the building industry” and “Master of Science and Technology
in Civil Engineering with specialization in Building informatics”. The supervisor of this
thesis is Associate Professor Mr. Kjeld Svidt from Aalborg University.
The thesis starts with a general description of the history of the Danish building industry how it
has passed since year 1950 to days date. Afterwards there is a description of what the Danish
building industry is facing these years. The issues of the Danish building industry are low on
productivity and still lack to deliver good quality. This thesis has focused mostly on risk and risk
management in companies and how experiences are gathered to create improvements for certain
operators in the building industry. The above mentioned thoughts gave reason to the following
problem formulation:
“How is the optimal risk management in construction based on experiences gathered through
digital tools and surrounding processes?”
To supply the literature the project group interviewed an adviser, contractor and an owner to
know how they identified their risk and how they handle risk management. The results of these
interviews showed that the companies never store the knowledge of the project in the company.
That means that they all kept making the same mistakes because they did not have en record of
the former projects. On the basis of the interview companies were shown an interest to compile a
knowledge system in the company.
The results show that there is more than one solution to the main thesis. The project group has
developed a system to handle knowledge in the company. The systems are based on some benchmarks
laid down for a construction project, in this database, it is possible to look at previous projects,
what the risks have been and how they have been resolved. There must be some multiple
processes and tools that come into play in order to get an optimal knowledge system. In view of
this, the project group including recommended a project file, follow-up meetings, review meetings,
experience gathering, Balanced Scorecard and a risk manager. The project group has made
an action plan for how the company can implement these processes and tools to achieve effective
risk management using previous experience and knowledge.