Evaluating Contractors’ Production Performance in Highway Projects Using Historical Daily Work Report Data

Abstract

One of the most crucial tasks that a project owner has to undertake is choosing the most competent contractor for the project. The current body of knowledge on contractor prequalification and selection through bidding focuses on the development of multiple-criteria models using decision makers’ subjective judgments. Few studies have used existing data from past projects. This study presents a data-driven approach to evaluating contractors’ production performance on past highway projects, a critical but rarely considered aspect of current evaluation systems. Using historical daily work report data, actual production rates were calculated for controlling activities in past projects. These rates were classified into three tiers of contractor production performance; four contractor-independent factors, which influence rates, location, project budget, weather, and quantity of work, were considered by applying classification techniques, distribution fitting, and Monte Carlo simulation. Performance indexes were proposed in order to enable comparisons. The proposed framework allows project owners to evaluate contractors more objectively and comprehensively by considering an additional but critical criterion in the existing evaluation process, that is, contractors’ past production performance.