Construction industry participants have started recognizing that accepting the least price bid does not guarantee maximum value. Achieving a value-based procurement approach is a challenge, particularly for the Pakistani public sector clients, who are limited in their ability to evaluate the competitive bids based solely on the lowest-bid award system. Persisting problems of inferior quality of constructed facilities, high incidence of claims and litigation, and frequent cost and schedule overruns have become the main features of Pakistan’s public construction works contracts. This research was undertaken to assess the performance of public owned construction projects awarded on a lowest bidder bid awarding system. Also, the objective was to seek construction professionals’ opinions about the traditional bidding procedure and other alternative systems for evaluation of bids and awarding contracts. An extensive literature search was carried out to identify different practices and a questionnaire survey was conducted among the different groups that make up the construction industry in Pakistan. Five alternate bid evaluation and contract award methods are discussed and presented in this research. The questionnaire was distributed online as well as through visits to contractors, clients and consultants. Additionally, 12 interviews were conducted with clients, consultants and contractors. In total 200 questionnaires were distributed. The data were collected and 112 valid questionnaires were analyzed by using MS Excel, PH stat, SPSS-20 and Sigma XL. The study concludes that 70% of the respondents consider the multi-parameter bidding method is to be more effective than lowest bidding method and ranked this method as best amongst all six selected methods. Insights and discussions are given in the analysis. Finally, this work will provide valuable information to clients, consultants and contractors and other stakeholders who desire to improve bidding methods in construction in Pakistan.
Keywords: Bidding System, Construction Projects, Public Sector Construction, Public Sector Procurement.
