Critical Success Factors for Supplier Selection in the Construction Industry: The Case of Public Works Department

This research aims to identify Malaysia construction industry’s procurement system as well as its supplier selection decision making factors. This study also aims to establish a metric importance hierarchy as well as to find the correlation of metrics with major stakeholders of the construction industry. All this is done through a mixed-method approach using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Target respondents are from Public Works Department headquarters in Malaysia that are directly involved with supplier selection. Findings shows that an established construct of metric hierarchy simplifies supplier selection process as well as the process can be made optimal with less errors. This will anticipate more path of improvement towards the current policies besides creating a more transparent procurement process in supplier selection. Moreover, developing a systematic procedure in supplier selection will enable and ensure better optimization in construction projects. Hence, this will boost organizational effectiveness and profit and further improve the procurement development in Malaysia. The final outcome of this study is to embark in greater supplier selection standards and to raise procurement to the next level.