No abstract

The achievement of any project undertaking is defined by improved quantity and cost estimation technique that facilitates optimum utilization of resources. The objective of this study is to develop a cost estimation technique by using an artificial neural network (ANN) model that will be able to forecast the total structural cost of residential buildings by considering various parameters. In this study, data of last twenty three years has been collected from Schedule of rate book (SOR) and general studies. Eight input parameters, namely, cost of cement, sand, steel, aggregates, mason, skilled worker, non-skilled worker and the contractor per square feet construction were selected. The parameters were simulated in NEURO XL Version 2.1 for developing ANN architecture. The resulting ANN model reasonably predicted the total structural cost of building projects with correlation factor R-0.9960 and RSquared-0.9905 giving favorable training and testing phase outcomes.