MCPCM: A DEMATEL-ANP-based multi-criteria decision-making approach to evaluate the critical success factors in construction projects

Abstract

Project success is a fundamental issue for any planning, design and construction development. Thus, it effects the stakeholders which involve government, developer, constructor and communities as the end users. Critical success factors (CSFs) have been key aspects of a construction project which are considered to be a means to improve the effectiveness of project. CSF literature has been widely addressed, and many researchers evaluated the gaps in CSFs for construction projects’ success. However, this paper highlights the importance levels of interdependency among the CSFs which has rarely been explored in the prior studies. In this study, most influential factors in successfully completing construction projects are used to develop a new integrated model, multi-criteria construction projects CSF model. A novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model is used to address the dependence relationships of factors with the aid of grey relational analysis, analytical network process (ANP) and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL). The initial model of the study is designed by considering five main criteria with 43 sub-criteria. DEMATEL is applied to construct interrelations among criteria and sub-criteria in the integrated model. By using this approach, the interdependencies strength among the criteria and sub-criteria is tested. The ANP method is then adopted in order to determine the relative importance of the CSFs, and used to identify how the CSFs are weighted and prioritized by the construction professionals, who are all working in different areas of the construction industry. The development of this MCDM model helps project parties in Malaysia in identifying the key elements and factors that need to be thoroughly considered and managed for construction project success. The results of this study can also be a guide for the construction organizations to allocate their resources such as financial and time for the construction projects according to the importance level of construction project success factors.