Contractor performance measurement for public school projects

Abstract

Project performance is measured by the project duration, cost and quality at the project level. However, any project success depends mainly on the contractor’s performance. Indeed, the majority of factors that led to poor project performance are due to the contractor’s action. Many studies conducted recently have identified several factors that influence the project success which was due to deficiencies of the contractor’s performance. However, none of these studies have focussed on combination of performance during tender stage and construction stage. Hence, this study aims is to investigate and integrate project performance during the tender stage and the construction stage. This research introduces the major criteria and its measurement indicators that influence the selection of contractors for tender evaluation; and the major factors and its measurement indicators that influence the construction performance at the construction stage. In addition, this research also introduces the performance matrix that integrates both stages which provide the estimation of the possible contractor performance at completion. Subsequently, the major criteria and major factors were determined via pilot study and followed by the full scale questionnaire surveys. Similarly, in stage three, pilot study and full scale questionnaire survey were employed to develop the measurement indicators. Interviews with selected experts were conducted to validate the research findings. The method of analysis engaged in this study are factor analysis; relative importance index (RII); descriptive analysis; frequency analysis and correlation analysis. The results from the analysis has successfully determined six major factors for the construction stage as the major factors that influence the project success among the 104 factors which were identified initially through literature review and pilot study. This includes contractor’s management problem; labour problem; subcontractor’s problem and experience; contractor’s financial problem; machineries and material problem; and weather conditions. This finding has subsequently led to the establishment of weights, scale and points for each of the major criteria/factors. In addition, a framework was also established to calculate the total score for each stage and this finding has resulted to the development of the performance matrix. Following that, validation of the measurement indicator was performed by comparing the construction score which was determined from the measurement indicator against the actual completion duration and the result suggests that the accuracy of the measurement indicator is 77%. In conclusion, this study has successfully developed the performance matrix which provides the prediction tools in predicting the contractor performance at completion. The research also addresses the advantages and limitations of the performance matrix as well as recommendations for future research.