A case-based procurement advisory system for construction

Abstract

The selection and use of an appropriate procurement system are fundamental to the success of a construction project. However, the procurement selection process involves the analysis of complex and dynamic criteria such as cost certainty, time certainty, speed, flexibility, etc. Procurement selection is, therefore, plagued with uncertainty and vagueness that is difficult to be represented by a generalized set of rules. In reality, decisions in procurement selection are usually derived from intuition and past experience. Case-based reasoning (CBR) appears to be an appropriate approach to meet the requirements of the procurement selection process because of the value of experiential knowledge. This paper reviews the practicality and suitability of a CBR approach for procurement selection through the development of a prototype case-based procurement advisory system. In this prototype system, procurement selection cases are represented by a set of attributes elicited from experienced procurement experts. The system is powered by a fuzzy similarity retrieval mechanism, which gives a greater accuracy than the normal similarity retrieval process. The results indicate that the CBR approach can suitably model the characteristics of construction procurement selection, and provide an indication of potential outcomes to any apparently suitable procurement methods. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.