Preselection of Contractors Before Inviting for Bidding Using AHP

Abstract

Contractor preselection is a typical multi-criteria decision-making problem that includes both quantitative and qualitative criteria. Contractor preselection requires a tool that will help managers in reducing the no. of bidders, and this process is critical in recovering markets where emphasis is on the cost, quality and sound management of contractors. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a structured technique for organizing and analysing complex decisions. It has particular application in group decision-making and is used around the world in a wide variety of decision situations, in the fields such as government, business, industry, healthcare and education. AHP methodology provides a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a decision problem, for representing and quantifying its elements, for relating those elements to overall goal and for evaluating alternative solutions. This paper seeks to take full advantage of AHP and solve the contractor preselection problem using it.