Contractor Qualification Research Articles

Assessment of Government Contractor Classification System in Saudi Arabia

This paper presents results of a study to assess the Government Contractor Classification System in Saudi Arabia. Contract award procedures in public projects of Saudi Arabia are accomplished in two steps. The first one involves qualifying contractors to insure that their technical, financial, and managerial capabilities are suitable for the project to be awarded. This qualification is accomplished by the Contractor Classification Agency- Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs- in which the contractor is classified according to his specialty and capabilities. In the second step, bids of the contractors who satisfy the required classification are evaluated to select the best bid. Since the contractor classification is the only screening method to disqualify incompetent contractors and the difficulty of dismissing a qualified contractor who submits the lowest bid, the contractor classification must be an actual measure for the contractor's capabilities. To assess the contractor classification system a questionnaire has been prepared and distributed to the project mangers in different public ministries and agencies. The number of distributed questionnaire was 250 and 198 were collected and used in this study. In order to conduct an objective evaluation, a comparison has been conducted between performance of contractors who are awarded projects based on the contractor classification only with performance of contractors who are awarded projects based on the contractor classification and an additional prequalification by the project owner. Also, Chi-squared test was used to verify the cause of the difference in results of using these two types of prequalification. Results of the study reveal that the contractor classification system does not properly reflect the contractors’ capabilities.

An Analysis of the Selection of Project Contractor in the Construction Management Process

Construction contractors have big influences upon projects and their successes. Therefore, it is quite critical to select a qualified contractor in the process of construction management. A competent construction contractor is one of the indispensable conditions of a proper process and completion of a construction project. There are several theoretical frameworks or models applied in the evaluation of contractors. And there are some practical criteria for selecting an appropriate contractor. This paper analyzed the relevant theoretical methods for contractor evaluation and examined the actual criteria for the selection of contractors.

Prospect of using electronics to do economic analysis of contractors' bids

The tendering process is designed to select the most qualified contractor for a specified job, but the presence of human bias and selfish subjective selections in tender analysis has been perceived to lead to the selection of unqualified contractors in the Nigerian construction industry. This situation has given rise to the need to adopt electronic means that will help minimize the effect of human influence on a selection process. It is therefore the aim of this study, to evaluate the present state of e tendering in the Nigerian construction industry, with the objectives of identifying the mode of electronics in use for tender evaluations, accessing the extent to which these electronics have been used, investigating the constraints that has hampered the application/appreciation of electronics in tender evaluation and accessing the benefits inherent in the use of electronics in tender evaluations. In the method of the study, a questionnaire was drafted and distributed, comprising relevant questions that bordered on the respondent's personal character and response to research questions. Mean Response Value (MRV) method was used to analyze the data collected. From the analysis, it was discovered that in general, professionals involved in the bid/ tender evaluation process were aware of e tendering but did not practice it, and as such had no skills in it. It was also discovered that the greatest constraint to the use of electronics in tender evaluation in Nigeria was the IT illiteracy amongst contractors and amongst consultants. It is recommended that Government provide the enabling environment by taking the lead in adopting e tendering for all its pubic procurements as a continuously procuring entity. This will pave the way and stimulate the participation of the private sectors in e tendering. While professional bodies should live up to their responsibilities in ensuring its membership is carried along in modern practices through continuous professional development programmes.Key words: e-tendering, tender, analysis, IT, awareness, capacity, illiteracy, interoperability, web, portals.

Highway Construction Quality Index for Florida

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is developing strategies to improve the quality of transportation infrastructure while coping with changes in business models and reductions in agency personnel. Nationwide, policy is changing more quickly than ever, and every policy change reinforces the need for contractors who perform high-quality work. There have been several initiatives in the past to develop some kind of rational, objective system of rating the quality of highway construction projects. There have also been initiatives to utilize these ratings for substantial issues such as contractor qualification and bidding purposes, but not one state uses their quality ratings for anything more substantial than setting contractors’ bidding ceilings. Some states do not use these ratings at all and some states do not even rate the quality of their projects. One of the chief complaints against current systems is their subjectivity. The construction quality index, developed through a grant from FDOT, is a rating of the quality of materials and workmanship on highway projects that, unlike current quality rating models used by state highway agencies, is totally objective. Under limited validation testing, the model assigned quality index values consistent with the owner's level of satisfaction with the project.

ANALYSIS OF CRITERIA FOR CONTRACTORS’ QUALIFICATION EVALUATION

Selecting a construction contractor is a major decision which may influence the progress and success of any construction project. The paper analyses criteria used to evaluate qualification of contractors in Lithuania and abroad. Both in Lithuania and abroad, the bid price of construction works is the main criterion for evaluation of con‐tractors. The lowest price often cannot guarantee commitments on quality and duration of a construction project. Therefore, when selecting a contractor, a client must not only compare bid prices but also set other criteria for evalua‐tion of qualification and determine their weight. A contractor must be selected according to both quantitative and qualitative criteria, and bids should be compared. Only on the basis of quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria and by comparing bids of contractors it is possible to select a qualified, competent and reliable contractor, to evaluate its qualification, economic and financial condition and technical capability and skills and to achieve relevant results in a construction project. The paper provides an investigation of Lithuanian companies, which analyses issues related to evaluation of contractors’ qualification. The paper is completed with a discussion of the investigation results and delivery of proposals based on expert estimations of the weight of criteria for evaluation of contractors.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES OF CLIENTS AND CONSULTANTS TO CONTRACTORS’ QUALIFICATION AND SELECTION

Nowadays, clients are the dominant groups in almost all types of industries. However, the construction industry is unique and consultants, as representatives of clients, are very important figures in this industry as well. By presenting survey findings of 91 clients and 50 consultants, this study reveals clients’ and consultants’ differing expectations of contracting organisations during contractor qualification and selection. The study has clearly confirmed the fact that consultants’ perspectives are rather different and their contractors’ expectations of their clients vary very significantly from the clients themselves. Furthermore, significantly different results were found even among different types of consultants and different categories of clients. Moreover, this study showed that both clients and consultants had high willingness to continue working with the same contractor in possible future works assuming they are satisfied with the previous works. The criteria, which contribute to achieving full client and/or consultant satisfaction and hence lead to possible repetitive works are identified and the results showed the existence of significant difference between clients and consultants perspectives regarding this issue as well. The framework presented within this paper aims to help the contracting organisations to compare and recognise the different approaches and perceptions of both clients and consultants during contractor qualification and selection processes. The contracting organisations in the related sectors will be able to use the framework provided within this study to recognise the overall demand in a more complete and better manner and hence formulate or modify strategies accordingly.

Quality-Based Contractor Rating Model for Qualification and Bidding Purposes

A quality contractor on every construction project would make project management simpler for Department of Transportation (DOT) project engineers and strategic planning more accurate for DOT executives. A qualification model that includes the quality of a contractor's past work would be invaluable in assuring that each project had a quality contractor. Including the quality of past work in the bidding process would further help in this goal. Implementation of such a model for both its potential uses would require business process reengineering for the DOT in two important areas: qualification of contractors and contract award procedures. The research team has produced an innovative model, called the Quality-Based Performance Rating (QBPR) system. This model receives inputs from traditional subjective sources and integrates them with totally objective data input from the results of tests of the project's materials and workmanship, then uses these inputs to produce a score for each project that is further used by the system to generate an index for each contractor reflecting that contractor's quality of work over a specified time frame.

Different approaches of clients and consultants to contractors’ qualification and selection

Abstract Nowadays, clients are the dominant groups in almost all types of industries. However, the construction industry is unique and consultants, as representatives of clients, are very important figures in this industry as well. By presenting survey findings of 91 clients and 50 consultants, this study reveals clients’ and consultants’ differing expectations of contracting organisations during contractor qualification and selection. The study has clearly confirmed the fact that consultants’ perspectives are rather different and their contractors’ expectations of their clients vary very significantly from the clients themselves. Furthermore, significantly different results were found even among different types of consultants and different categories of clients. Moreover, this study showed that both clients and consultants had high willingness to continue working with the same contractor in possible future works assuming they are satisfied with the previous works. The criteria, which contribute to achiev...

Estimation of Minimum Working Capital for Construction Projects in Malaysia

Forecasting cash requirements is essential for all contractors during the tendering stage since cash flow at the beginning of the project is a major cause of construction companies’ failure. Unfortunately, estimating minimum working capital (MWC) is not the mainstream practice of the majority of contractors in Malaysia, who find that the present models for estimating MWC are cumbersome and seldom give an accurate estimate. Therefore estimates of MWC made during the tendering stage need to be simplified so they can be prepared quickly with minimum input. It is important for the developer or owner to select a qualified contractor with competent financial backing. This paper establishes the relationship among the factors that contribute to MWC requirements and presents a simple model that could be used as a guide to estimate MWC for housing construction projects in Malaysia. The estimation is based on percentages of variables of contract value based on the historical data that influence MWC; the MWC obtained...

건축물 리모델링의 활성화 및 안전관리방안에 관한 연구

The purposes of this research are to use the buildings efficiently and long, save energies, make the cozy and comfortable environment of residential and living spaces, rearrange the related acts for easy implementation of remodeling, and activate the government's support programs so as to make remodeling activated in a safe mode. The scope and methodology of this research include the review of existing literatures and data on remodeling, census on apartment residents, influence factors, and the development of methods for activation of building remodeling and strengthening of safety management, like activation measures, licensing and ordering regulation updates, etc regarding the remodeling. Safety inspection and in-depth inspection before and after remodeling should be regulated. The construction materials for remodeling should be light weighted and the construction methods which can minimize the impact and vibration during construction should be selected. The improvement of regulation on the remodeling contractor qualification and order method should be updated. If the remodeling is activated and safety management is reinforced by the suggested measures, solving of lack of house, prevention of abuse of resources, and improvement of residential environment could be accomplished rationally.

A multi‐criteria approach to contractor selection

This paper describes a multiple‐criteria decision support system (MCDSS) for the selection of the most appropriate contractor. The system can accommodate the unique characteristics of a project in addition to the qualifications and capabilities of those contractors assessed. The system first evaluates the list of contractors by matching their qualifications with specific project conditions. A short list of eligible contractors is thus selected and further the MCDSS compares the current capabilities of the short listed contractors and their plans for the project under consideration, to select the most appropriate contractor. The Delphi method was used to evoke expertise and obtain reliable assessment values for all criteria related to the contractor qualification, while the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to assess the specific project conditions. The system can be easily modified to adopt specific conditions of the proposed project and also to facilitate the decision maker in explaining the reasons for the elimination of excluded contractor.

Construction bid price evaluation

To overcome the disadvantages of the low bid price policy in open competitive contracts, many are advocating the average bid method for bid evaluation. However, as elucidated in this study, this method has some disadvantages. The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternate statistical procedure for bid evaluation. Such procedure applies simple statistical analysis to identify unrealistically low-priced bids, based on either the t-distribution or the normal distribution of a previously established database of similar bids. In this procedure, the ratio of a contractor's bid to owner cost estimate is used to eliminate the distorting effect of the project size. The unrealistically low-priced contracts are then excluded and the bid with the lowest price among the remaining bids is accepted. The procedure requires establishing a database of previous bids.Key words: bid evaluation, competitive bidding, contractor qualification, tender evaluation, contract administration, contract management, bid management.

Contractor selection: qualification and bid evaluation

Historically the selection of contractors in North America was almost exclusively based on the lowest tendered price. Owners utilized competitive tendering for its simplicity and fairness in the award process. More recently, owners have reconsidered the use of low price as the basis for selecting contractors and therefore have attempted to modify the traditional low bid system with qualification and evaluation clauses. Qualification and evaluation clauses have caused considerable controversy in the public sector, where contractors are concerned about the legitimacy of tendering procedures when public funds are used. Although contractors agree that the system needs improvement, there are conflicting views on what should be done. This paper provides a summary of traditional tendering procedures and illustrates two possible modifications to the contractor selection process. The intended audience is practicing professionals, particularly those in the public sector where the objectivity of the tendering process is under such scrutiny. Evaluation is selected as the direction with the most potential for improvements. The evaluation option is analyzed by examining its legal implications through a discussion of recent case law. Finally, recommendations for implementing an evaluation system are discussed to address the issues identified through the legal discussion and from the opposing views in the construction industry. Key words: construction, contract law, competitive bidding, contractor qualification, bid evaluation.

小型合併処理浄化槽放流水の消毒効果

Performances of disinfection process were investigated at small domestic wastewater treatment plants (Johkasou) which have an important role for excreta/wastewater treatment in individual houses. As disinfection apparatuses were well maintained by owner or qualified contractor, residual chlorine in effluent was detected in most cases even when wastewater from bathtub was discharged. Disinfection efficiency, however, was not perfect, because there were many cases which residual chlorine and coliform/fecal coliform group were detected together in effluent. It became clear that the concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen in treated water should be at least lower than 10 mg/l to pass the effluent standard of coliform group, 3000 number/ml, with using the current disinfection method.