A Novel Framework For Construction Contractor Selection Using Unique Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Technique

Abstract

The successful delivery of a construction project is highly dependent on the contractor allocated to the project and hence the proper selection of the contractor is of significant importance. In public sector, the procurement method is mostly competitive bidding in which the contractor with the lowest bid price is selected at the final selection stage after passing through the technical and commercial evaluations. However, it is evident that selecting the construction contractor at the final stage only based on the lowest price does not yield the best project delivery. This thesis proposes a novel framework for the selection of construction contractor by identifying non-price contractor selection criteria; and develops a unique hybrid multi-criteria decision-making technique of DEMATEL-AHP-FRM to solve the contractor selection problem. A case study from Qatar was conducted to verify the proposed model through a survey that was conducted by interviewing professionals from the construction industry. It was found that, according to the sample project data acquired, the proposed model selection yielded to the selection of a contractor with a balanced non-price and price score, neglecting the lowest price contractor. Indeed, by careful analysis, it was shown that the selection output of the model is predicted to eventually result in better project delivery aspects as the selected contractor is more capable in terms of technical and other aspects, namely non-price criteria, than the lowest price contractor.