Decision Support for Subcontracting Procurement Based on Multi-Attribute Utility Theories

In order to diversify against risk in the industry and marketplace, reduce operation costs, secure competitive advantages and search for the most suitable profit base, the construction industry for some time has shown to have a highly fragmented subcontracting structure. In the traditional process of adopting subcontractors and procurement, for reasons of information asymmetry, benefit entanglement, uncertain factors, and ambiguous criteria for selection, the quality of tender invitation to select subcontractors frequently cannot be controlled well, finally resulting in inefficient management and poor project performance, especially for the practical use in projects that require many subcontractors under heavy time constraints. This research, following the macro viewpoint of systematization, the overall subcontracting participants of a construction project is considered as a global procurement system and a multi-attribute decision support system will be developed to obtain optimal combination of subcontractors selection under meeting the certain utility preference of decision-maker. Under the proposed framework of information system, the decision-maker can access a quicker support and have more analytical power to judge the final utility of subcontracting procurement.