COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DIFFERENT CONTRACTOR SELECTION METHODS

Contractors are very important in construction projects for the completion of project and selection of the best contractor for the project is a crucial decision for clients or owner. Selecting the right contractor for the right project is the most crucial challenge for any construction clients. Selection of the contractor to whom the client can trust and give the responsibility to execute the project has been primarily on the basis of bid price alone and the lowest price (tender) is usually described as being the key to win the contract, despite the fact that the tender sum is a major consideration because of instability and competitiveness of the construction industry, the selection of lowest bidder is one of the major reason for project failures. Recently there has been a trend away from a lowest price wins principle and subjective judgments to a multi criteria selection approach. In the present study A Comparative Study of Different Contractor Selection Methods has been done. Multicriteria decision approach considers both price and nonprice related criteria’s for the selection of the contractor. Based on the past research done by the professionals the criteria’s are selected. The important criteria’s are listed out by survey for the selection of the best contractor and by using those criteria comparative study of different contractor selection methods has been done. Here I have used Analytical hierarchy process (AHP), TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) and Weighted Score Method (WSM) for the selection of a contractor among the bidders and those methods were compared. It is observed from the comparative study that the contractor who is having more weightage for the criteria which is having more weightage is selected as the best contractor and it is also observed that the contractor who is having more weightage for quality performance is selected as best.