Decision support for contract strategy

Abstract

An appropriate contract strategy is desirable and critical for construction project success. The formulation of an appropriate contract strategy entails extensive expert knowledge. This triggers the need to organize and retain the experience gained during contract strategy formulation for decision support in future projects. The advanced development in computer-based decision support systems (DSSs) could be exploited to assist in contract strategy formulation. This paper outlines a developmental framework of a DSS for contract strategy. The scope of contract strategy is reviewed and some important sub-strategies are highlighted. The contract strategy reasoning process is discussed. Three categories of factors considered in contract strategy are outlined. These factors are related to project characteristics, client's objectives, and client's in-house capability. The DSS will be a case-based reasoning (CBR) system. The feasibility and suitability of using the CBR technique for the retention of expertise related to contract strategy are presented. Four major aspects for the development of the CBR system for decision support in contract strategy are discussed. These major aspects include case representation, case retrieval, case adaptation and case acquisition. © 2004 ASCE.