Impact of qualifications-based selection of engineering services on project outcomes

随着政府组织服务外包的扩大，加拿大各地对专业建筑和工程(A/E)服务的采购也在增加。为保持公平和透明度，公共机构在批出急症室服务的标书时，往往采用以价格为基础的采购程序。然而，事实证明，急救顾问的表现会影响已建成设施的质量和成本。尽管A/E服务的表现会影响项目交付，但影响项目结果的资格类型及其影响绩效的程度仍然是建筑工程和管理文献中相对未被探索的方面。将这些知识纳入可实施的决策支持系统将使采购商能够为其特定项目选择最佳服务提供商，确保在加拿大建造的设施更高效、更有创意、更方便用户、更可持续和更安全。采用基于资质的遴选方法预计会降低建筑成本，这将使政府机构能够为更多的项目提供资金，进一步加强向公众提供的服务，同时增强公众的信心，即纳税人的资金正在分配给为加拿大人提供最高性价比的A/E公司。拟议研究的目标是定义、评估和预测A/E资格对加拿大项目结果的影响，并将这些知识概括为行业决策支持工具。将确定影响A/E绩效的资格，量化这些因素对历史项目结果的影响，并开发能够预测各种A/E资格对未来项目结果影响的模拟模型。总之，拟议的研究旨在以决策支持工具的形式制定一个基于资格的甄选程序，供各组织在作出采购决定时公平和透明地考虑A/E服务的质量以及投标价格。

As outsourcing of services by governmental organizations expands, procurement of professional Architectural and Engineering (A/E) services is increasing across Canada. In an effort to maintain fairness and transparency, public organizations often use a price-based procurement process when awarding bids for A/E services. Performance of A/E consultants, however, has been shown to influence the quality and cost of built facilities. Although the performance of A/E services can impact project delivery, the types of qualifications that affect project outcomes, as well as the magnitude by which they affect performance, remains a relatively unexplored aspect of construction engineering and management literature. Encapsulating such knowledge into an implementable decision-support system would allow procurers to select the optimum service providers for their particular project, ensuring that facilities built in Canada are more efficient, creative, user-friendly, sustainable, and safe. Reductions in construction costs expected to arise from adopting a qualifications-based selection approach would allow government agencies to fund additional projects, further enhancing the services provided to the public while increasing the public's confidence that taxpayer funds are being allocated to A/E firms that are providing Canadians with the best value for their money. The goal of the proposed research is to define, assess, and predict the impact of A/E qualifications on project outcomes in Canada and to encapsulate this knowledge as a decision-support tool for industry. Qualifications impacting A/E performance will be identified, the impact of these factors on historical project outcomes will be quantified, and a simulation model capable of predicting the impact of various A/E qualifications on future project outcomes will be developed. Altogether, the proposed research aims to develop a qualification-based selection procedure, in the form of a decision-support tool, which can be used by various organizations to fairly and transparently consider the quality of A/E services along with bid price during procurement decisions.