Methodology for selecting project delivery and contract strategies for capital projects

Oyetunji, A A (2001) Methodology for selecting project delivery and contract strategies for capital projects. PhD thesis, Texas A&M University, USA.

Abstract

Project delivery and contract strategies (PDCS) define the roles and responsibilities of the parties that are involved in a capital project, and how the project Owner pays for services. They define the Owner's framework for managing project execution. An efficient framework would facilitate project success. Establishing such framework for a project would be achieved when the most suitable project delivery and contract strategy is selected. In place of informal assessments that is the current practice, a structured methodology has been developed for making this important project management decision by project Owners. This procedure focuses on the Owner's project objectives and the project execution environment, and incorporates a quantitative assessment of twelve integrated PDCS alternatives in a decision support tool. The procedure includes a decision support tool in the form of a simple Excel™ workbook for performing the PDCS selection analysis. This analysis involves identifying the selection factors that are relevant to the project under consideration (decision objectives that are aligned with the Owners' overall project objectives and other success parameters for the particular project), assigning preference weights to those factors to reflect their priority on that project, and obtaining aggregate scores from the spreadsheet. The aggregate scores are computed as sum-product functions of the user-defined preference weights, and pre-determined relative effectiveness values. The higher the aggregate score, the more suitable the PDCS alternative is, in theory, for the subject project. The results of the decision support tool are reviewed in a final decision making step. Responses obtained during testing and validation of this procedure and tool have already shown that it: (1) Expands the set of PDCS alternatives that are available to Owners in the decision-making process. (2) Is an improvement over current practices. (3) Identifies optimal solutions. (4) Enhances insight into the problem of selecting a project delivery and contract strategy for a capital project. (5) Harmonizes delivery systems with contract strategies and relates these to the Owner's project objectives. (6) Constitutes a useful decision support system. (7) Provides a defensible rationale for PDCS selection.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Thesis advisor: Anderson, S D
Uncontrolled Keywords: contract strategy; decision support; effectiveness; decision making; project delivery; project success; owner
Index terms: project success, spreadsheet, owner, decision-making process, aggregate, effectiveness, capital project, project delivery, project management, testing, decision support, validation, contract strategy, decision-making, methodology, preference
Subjects: materials science, professional practice, data science, contractual arrangements, project delivery, strategic project management, professional development, project management theory and practice, decision-making and reasoning, research methods, performance management, decision analysis, sociology
Topics: Stakeholder Management, Research Practice, Information Management, Quality Management, Procurement, Risk Management, Project Management, Engineering Principles
Descriptive scope: 3 PCT

N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here