Site Event Advisor: Expert System for Contract Claims

Abstract

A battery of expert system applications that support construction contract claims analysis is being developed in a researh program at the University of Colorado in conjunction with the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Labs and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The collective name given to these systems is the Claims Guidance System. This paper describes a component piece of the Claims Guidance System called the Site Event Advisor (SEA). SEA was developed to help determine which of several claim types could flow from some unusual event occurring at a construction site. The system analyzes the characteristics of the event and the nature of the potential dispute, and suggests the kinds of claims (entitlement issues) that might likely arise from these circumstances. The system uses a production‐rule‐based inferencing system, and it acts as a front end to the other export system modules of the Claims Guidance System.