Impact of project procurement systems on performance of Rwandan building construction projects

Abstract

Delivering a construction project successfully is associated with the procurement system used. In other words, the selection of the appropriate system can guarantee the success of the construction project. Therefore, this paper evaluated and compared the effects of the most-utilised project procurement systems on the key performance criteria in the Rwandan building construction projects such as time, cost, quality and scope. A questionnaire survey was conducted among contractors, consultants and clients, and a total of 73 questionnaires were used for the analysis. The survey results, analysed by using statistic method, discovered that the traditional procurement system of design-bid-build (DBB) is the most-employed system in Rwanda. Also, it was revealed that in the Rwandan building construction industry, the construction management (CM) system was identified as a system that performs better for more objectives than others. Specifically, the results showed that owner direct force (ODF) is suitable for cost effectiveness, design and build (DB) system is better for time performance, and CM performs better for both scope and quality achievement. This study will facilitate Rwandan construction practitioners to be able to choose the appropriate option that suits the main objectives of their projects in order to reduce risks resulting from the use of unrelated procurement systems.