An Executive Support System for contract bidding decisions

It is widely contended that since any one particular project contributes a relatively significant part of a construction firms turnover, the bidding decision on any one project will ultimately have a significant effect on the firms long term performance. It is also generally accepted that the formal strategy models aimed at supporting such decisions are generally not favoured by contractors, who prefer instead to rely on heuristic decision making based on experience, judgement and perception. It is also suggested however, that although many contractors have access to extensive information, most of them fail to make full use of this information to support or improve their contract bidding decisions. This paper discusses a new approach to supporting contract bidding decisions, focusing on supporting the decision makers principal information requirements, rather than formalising their judgemental processes. A structured methodology for modelling the information requirements of a contracting firm's contract bidding decisions is discussed. The method adopted is based on the techniques of information strategy planning and critical success factor analysis used in the development of executive information systems (EISs). In addition the development of a prototype computer based system, aimed at supporting such decisions, is presented together with a general description of the principal features of the system and the technologies employed. The result, ESSTA (Executive Support System for Tender Adjudication), is a system that focuses on supporting, rather than replacing, the judgements and perceptions of adjudication decision makers.