Delineating the performance standards of engineering consultants at design stage

Many clients nowadays scrutinize consultants' performance carefully before determining which company should be awarded a consultancy assignment. Despite that, evaluating the performance of an engineering consultant is seldom conducted in a systematic manner, as every assessor has his/her own value judgment to distinguish what is a 'good' or 'bad' performance. In order to reduce the divergence between different assessors when the evaluation is carried out, it would be desirable to define the standards of each indicator used for describing the performance of an engineering consultant in an objective manner. In this research, a survey is conducted to unveil the standards for various performance levels which correspond to a list of indicators used for gauging engineering consultants' performance at the design stage. A modified horizontal approach is employed to analyse the data, and the results indicate that engineering consultants should fulfil greater than 90% in most of the aspects relevant to the design stage to qualify for an 'excellent' performance rating. By referring to the expected performance standards, clients can identify which quantitative indicators at the design stage should deserve much greater attention so as to minimize the chance of commissioning an incapable engineering consultant.