Quantifying Contractors’ Qualifications Using Pairwise Comparison in the Best Value Procurement Method

Abstract

Among the critical factors of project success is the proper selection of qualified contractors. More owners are adopting Best Value (BV) procurement which combines the technical qualifications with fee proposals to rank bidders. However, the successful application of BV depends on two integral factors: ranking of contractor’s qualifications using multiple criteria and the weights assigned to each selection criterion. Many criteria are qualitative, leading to difficulties in objectively quantifying a contractor’s rank. Thus, this paper provides owners with a simplified decision-support methodology that quantifies criteria that owners might consider in their decisions, reduces the number of comparisons that owners must perform, and reduces bias in defining criteria weights. This was achieved by first collecting the criteria commonly used to assess contractors’ competence. Then, criteria were analyzed and clustered into separate, quantifiable groups. Third, pairwise comparison was employed to devise a criteria-weighting method based on the clustered groups and determine the scores of bidding contractors. The proposed methodology could help identify the areas of strengths and weaknesses of each contractor in comparison with other bidders. The method presents a scientific and practical approach and, thus, can be considered for future applications.