ABSTRACT
To deliver a built environment (BE) project, several project participants will be selected through procurement to operate under contracts that will be formed and negotiated through contracting. Contracts can be categorized into prime contracts, subcontracts, and other contracts. Although project owners initiate procurement on a project by selecting design and construction firms with which to negotiate a prime contract, procurement is not a privilege of project owners. A contractual relationship between a construction firm and an entity other than the project owner also relies on a set of documents. By adopting the competitive bidding procurement approach, the owner selects a construction firm based on a price, which is based on the design package. Similarly to best value selection, qualification-based selection is highly flexible and can be adapted for use under any project delivery method. However, this selection process de-emphasizes the importance of price by adopting a multi-criteria selection in which the price criterion is minimally weighted, if considered at all.
