| The dissertation identifies significant problems occurring on a large, industrial engineering project, and investigates the factors that have causal relationships with respect to these problems. Steps on developing data collection methods, including a project activity summary document and a project impact survey, are provided. The impacts of fourteen different problem areas, which range from management to technical-type problems are discussed. Decision-making in the early phases of the project is analyzed to determine the factors that influence the decisions. Twenty-two influence factors are shown to be related to the project's problem areas with causality ratings. Factor Impact/Controllability matrices present visually the relationships between each problem area and its influence factors. Based on the highest rated influence factors, solutions are proposed to lessen the problems' detrimental effects. Thus, the contributions of the dissertation include: a document that lists and ranks the significant problems occurring during the engineering phase of a large project, the influence factors that have causal relationships to the problem areas, and strategies to possibly reduce the costly effects of the problem areas. |
