Supporting Partnering Relation Management in the Implementation of Construction Projects Using AHP and Fuzzy AHP Methods

Abstract

The maintaining of good relations between the participants of a construction project and keeping the focus on the common goal - the success of the project - allow the performance of a project to be improved. The article presents the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to support the management of partnering relations during the implementation of a construction project. The article presents 18 parameters of partnering relations. These parameters were assigned to the cooperative relations between the general contractor or the company that manages the project and the four other participants: the subcontractors, the designer, the material and equipment suppliers and the investor. Four criteria were used to determine the order of the parameters that need to be improved first. These criteria are the duration, cost, quality and safety of the implementation of a construction project. The article features an AHP algorithm in which the pairwise comparisons were limited only to the criteria. Due to the large number of parameters, the article does not contain their pairwise comparisons, instead adopting an approach in which the priority vectors have been specified in a manner which takes into account the current assessments of the parameters of particular partnering relations and the weight of the impact that these parameters have on a given criterion. The results of the analysis can be treated as recommendations for the project manager. The higher the global priority of a parameter, the sooner it should be improved, as such an improvement is likely to be highly beneficial to the implementation of a construction project in terms of its duration, cost, quality and safety. The article provides an application of the AHP method presented in both its basic version and its more elaborate variant - Fuzzy AHP or FAHP. The provided example illustrates that the AHP method can be successfully adapted to supporting partnering relation management.