Optimal Contractor Selection in Construction Industry: The Fuzzy Way

A purely price-based approach to contractor selection has been identified as the root cause for many serious project delivery problems. Therefore, the capability of the contractor to execute the project should be evaluated using a multiple set of selection criteria including reputation, past performance, performance potential, financial soundness and other project specific criteria. An industry-wide questionnaire survey was conducted with the objective of identifying the important criteria for adoption in the selection process. In this work, a fuzzy set based model was developed for contractor prequalification/evaluation, by using effective criteria obtained from the percept of construction professionals, taking subjective judgments of decision makers also into consideration. A case study consisting of four alternatives (contractors in the present case) solicited from a public works department of Pondicherry in India, is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The final selection of contractor is made based on the integrated score or Overall Evaluation Score of the decision alternative in prequalification as well as bid evaluation stages.