A group decision and negotiation framework for hiring subcontractors in civil construction industry

• Autor(a) principal: PALHA, Rachel Perez
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFPE
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufpe.br/handle/123456789/25045
• topic: Engenharia de Produção; Voting procedure; MCDM/A; Negotiation; Additive-veto model; Sorting problematic

The literature presents several supplier selection models which discuss what features might be present in this type of analysis, such as plant localization, organizational structure, structures for governance, and models which consider uncertainty in information levels. Usually, models that focus on the selection itself impose the same method for running the selection process on all decision makers (DMs), even when a group of DMs makes the decision. However, a given problem might be evaluated differently depending on the DM, due to his/her having different objectives for the same problem and, due to the diversity found in civil construction projects, different activities have to be hired, and these have different effects on the project. Usually, in the civil construction industry, the hiring process ends up with a negotiation phase between the contractor and the top rated subcontractors. Thereby, in order to support DMs of contractors to follow a structured decision process to reach a better deal, this thesis presents a framework to aid DMs in selecting subcontractors. The framework considers two models to deal with each phase of the hiring process. The first model to be employed is the Additive-veto model for sorting problematic. Thus, an analyst lists the activities to be hired, and the DMs’ preferences are used to sort them into classes. This procedure enables DMs to apply a governance process compatible with the effect such activity may produce in the project, client, and contractor. Following a selection model is used. The analyst has to evaluate the rationality of each DM to choose a compatible MCDM/A method. Later on, when the framework directs the process to a group decision, a voting procedure chosen based on the preferences of the DMs is used to aggregate the DMs’ preferences. At last, the DMs follow a negotiation phase with the top-ranked subcontractors to decide which the best deal is. All models are illustrated with a numerical application in the civil construction industry. It can be verified that the framework proposed brings flexibility and allows DMs to make more informed decisions, enabling them to feel more secure about the hiring process of subcontractors. Since it requires less DMs to get involved in the decision process, the project benefits from reducing the time required from DMs, thus, reduces the cost of the decision process. In addition, the framework proposed can be used in other contexts, due to its flexibility.