A comparative study of project risk management with risk breakdown structure (RBS): a case of commercial construction in India

The construction industry deals with the growing complexity and dynamism exposed to numerous and interdependent risks which, evolve throughout the project. In most risk management processes, risk identification forms a long list or matrix, which it difficult in identifying more influenced risks. Preparing a risk list or risk matrix in the identification process has become inadequate for prioritizing risks. The construction industry is classified as commercial, industrial, and residential; identifying and managing the project risk for them on a common platform is difficult. In the present work risk breakdown structure (RBS) tool is used for the brief, clear identification of risks by interviewing and brainstorming with the experts involved in three commercial construction projects. It provides a means for grouping all possible individual project risks into risk categories (RC), linked by father/son relations, and risk events (RE) form the hierarchy. Further, analyzed to find the impact on the three main pillars of sustainability: Environmental, Financial, and Social. The plotted results are further structured with the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and found the global weight of each RC’s. The method is applied to illustrate the principle of process and highlights risk identification and its assessment in the Indian commercial construction industry.