Fuzzy approach to prequalifying construction contractors

Construction contractor prequalification (CCPQ) is a crucial decision making process to select capable potential bidders and ensure the success of construction projects. The purpose of CCPQ is to guarantee a contractor's characteristic to meet the construction project's requirements, which has been established worldwide as a standard practice. However, existing methods, i.e., marking method, subjective judgment method, etc., for contractor prequalification have been inadequate because it is difficult for decision makers to investigate contractor's capabilities against inexact, vagueness, and qualitative criteria. The objective of this paper is to propose a fuzzy framework-based fuzzy number theory to solve construction contractor prequalification issues, which include decision criteria analysis, weights assessment, and decision model development. Finally, a case study for a tunnel construction project was used to demonstrate the feasibility of fuzzy approaches.