Ng, S T; Kumaraswamy, M and Chow, L K (2001) Selecting consultants through combined technical and fee assessment: A Hong Kong study. In: Akintoye, A (ed.) Proceedings of 17th Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2001, Salford, UK.
Abstract
Many clients increasingly employ a competitive bidding approach for recruiting construction consultants. However, the concept of relying on the bid price alone is problematic as a consultant submitting the lowest bid may not necessarily be able to complete the work satisfactorily, and any errors in design or supervision may in turn cost the client many times the savings accrued from a low consultant fee. A proper consultant selection process, which takes into account other quality-based criteria, is therefore necessary to ensure the quality of the consultants appointed. This paper examines a Combined Technical and Fee Assessment (CTFA) approach being used in Hong Kong (HK), and discusses the weaknesses of the current CTFA approach. The initial results indicate that the disparity in the usage and relative importance of assessment criteria between various clients and the over-reliance on expert judgement in assigning the weightings are the major concerns of the current CTFA approach.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | consultant; fee; quality; pre-qualification; selection |
| Index terms: | Hong Kong, savings, disparity, expert judgement, relative importance, pre-qualification, supervision, competitive bidding |
| Subjects: | control systems, economic analysis, tendering, risk assessment, social justice, Geography, bidding |
| Topics: | Ethics, Geographical Context, Risk Management, Project Management, Procurement, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
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