Scoring of Tenders in Construction Projects Using Group Method of Data Handling

In a competitive construction environment, contractors are often faced with a large number of tenders that compel them to make the best decision in a limited time. In this paper, a decision support system (DSS) based on group method of data handling model (GMDH) was developed for the scoring of tenders (STs). Based on a comprehensive study of the existing literature and experts' opinions, seven criteria were extracted, namely client, contract, company, consulting engineers, project status/situation, risk, and economic criteria as the inputs of the system. To develop the DSS, the data from 135 tenders were collected from the previous tenders of a private construction contractor. The results illustrate that the proposed model, with a negligible error, is reliable in ST. Moreover, the proposed model specifies the score of new tenders, and decision-makers (DMs) can easily make their decisions in prioritizing and evaluating new tenders. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was performed to address the importance of the criteria, and it was concluded that the contract related criterion is the most important principle to the contractor. Eventually, a graphical user interface was designed in a user-friendly environment which allows the decision-makers to visualize the S T.