Advancing Construction Contract Risk Management Through Natural Language Processing: Insights, Challenges, and Opportunities

Disputes in the construction industry are increasingly complex, making the need for robust construction contractual risk management (CCRM) more vital to improving project performance in terms of cost, time, and quality. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is found to be a promising solution for creating CCRM system. However, there is very limited research into the application of NLP to CCRM over the last two decades. This study aims at conducting a scientometric analysis by using VOS
Viewer for summarising key trends, challenges, and opportunities in NLP
applications for CCRM. The results of the study identify gaps in interpreting
complex construction legal language, especially nuanced contractual clauses that current NLP is unable to understand correctly; these require well developed methods for NLP studies. Besides that, limited inter-disciplinary research is observed among several knowledge fields: construction, law, management and computer science, leading to shortcomings regarding the elaboration of multipurpose applications for managing the process of risks. The paper concludes that meeting these challenges
will utilise NLP's full potential for transformation in the automation and enhancement of CCRM practices yielding better project outcomes.