Assessing contractor selection criteria weights with fuzzy AHP method application in group decision environment

A tender procedure should facilitate selection of a reliable contractor with consideration to many criteria. Polish public procurement law, harmonized with EU guidelines on the subject, describes selection procedures in detail. Similar procedures are adopted by private sector clients as there exist no private sector specific procurement codes of practice. In the case of public procurement, the bid selection criteria have to refer to the object of procurement and not to the proprieties of a bidder. The client, in order to assure adequate quality of works (i.e. selection of a reliable and capable contractor) can, within the limits enforced by law, set conditions the bidders have to fulfill if they are to participate in a tender or negotiation procedure. The assessment based on criteria related with a bidder's technical and economic capability can be made also at the prequalification stage in restricted tendering procedures. The authors suggest the application of an extended fuzzy AHP method to the process of group decision making. This approach facilitates defining criteria weights by aggregation of decision makers' judgments. The paper presents an example that illustrates this approach to determining criteria weights for bidder assessment. The results show that the proposed fuzzy AHP method is superior to the traditional AHP in terms of improved quality of criteria prioritization. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.