A decision support system for rapid evaluation and selection of engineered equipment suppliers

Procurement’s role in engineering and construction is changing. Procurement is evolving into a far more strategic discipline. Major equipment procurement in particular ties up a large proportion of construction cost, has long lead time, and is usually associated with the acquisition of complex or specialized technology. Selection of suppliers is a complex process which requires the evaluation of several suppliers and project targets. This analysis is usually performed manually, it is time consuming, and certain tradeoffs may be overlooked. This research advances state of the art to aid the commercial evaluation and selection of engineered equipment suppliers in the early stages of capital projects. A decision support system was developed in cooperation with several leading engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) and owner firms within industrial construction. The system integrates firms’ market and supplier performance data with a decision aid method to support rapid tradeoff analysis and evaluation of sourcing alternatives in the early stages of capital projects.