Best-value in Korean public building construction

Although the low-bid system has played a major role in public building construction sector for a long time, this system has arguably delivered work of low quality, an continued and rising number of claims within the industry. With these challenges in mind, the Korean government has sought to examine and possibly adopt best-value procurement as an alternative approach to delivering public building construction projects within Korea. The reality however is that although delivering arguably a number of advantages, best-value does present the government with its own peculiar challenges because of a lack of a precise understanding of what 'best-value' means. Hence, in this study, the author seeks to examine the concept of best-value and its application to Korean public building construction. To achieve the stated objectives, the author draws upon extant literature in 'value' procurement to critically examine the impact of 'best-value' concepts in Korean public building procurement. Data is obtained from a survey of 180 managers involved in the procurement and management of public buildings in Korea. Utilising 'best-value' criteria drawn from literature, the author employs Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to weight 'best-value' criteria identified through the survey. Based on the results of the AHP exercise, the following are found; (i) value depends on the state of each individual building which can be defined from a 'need' perspective, (ii) the primary criteria for 'best-value' in Korea public construction projects were 'serviceability', 'safety', 'comfort' 'environmental friendliness', 'economical feasibility' and 'artistry' and finally that (iii) the importance of each primary criteria was dependent on the building type.