Evaluating Subcontractor Performance in Construction Industry

Abstract

Most of the construction projects undertaken are more complex in nature, demanding greater skills and technologies. In the past two decades, subcontracting has been utilized extensively in construction industry. Hence, subcontractor is a key person to assure the success of a construction project although many issues involved in subcontracting practice and rarely acknowledged. The reliance of ma in contractors on subcontractors to execute major portions of construction work makes the success of construction projects highly susceptible to the performance of subcontractor organizations. Early researches picked out those subcontractors are not being fully utilized due to various issues. As a result, subcontractors are subjected to put tremendous pressures on project performance in terms of quality, time and cost in construction industry. Therefore, in construction industry, there is a gap between the required performance level and the current performance of subcontractors. Thus, this study attempts to fulfill the gap between required and current performance of subcontractors by investigating subcontractors’ issues on the project performance in terms of t ime, cost and quality. Literature review indicated number of issues with subcontractors that had adversely influenced the performance of a construction project. The study was adopted survey approach to fulfill the research objective. The structured questionnaire which was developed by supporting literature findings was distributed among main contractors and sub-contractors. Relative Important Index was adopted to analyse and evaluate the collected data. The results revealed that, selection method, critical site coordination, labour migration, delay payment and site safety wer e respectively significant on subcontractor performance. Further, it was identified there is a positive relationship between attitudes of main contractor and subcontractor. The paper describes the mitigation measures that could be used to maximize the performance of construction projects in terms of time, cost and quality, while enhancing the performance of subcontractors.