Modeling subcontractor registration decisions through case-based reasoning approach

Acknowledging the importance of exercising a more stringent control over subcontractors, an influential industry report urges the establishment and maintenance of a Construction Subcontractor Registration (CSR) system. One key aspect of a credible and sustainable CSR system is to ensure that those companies seeking registration are assessed according to reliable standards and mechanisms. In practice, many managers rely on intuition, experience or predictive judgment to deal with the dynamic but interrelated requirements originating from various subcontractor and work categories. Being an artificial intelligence approach that mimics human problem solving skills, the case-based reasoning (CBR) approach should have potential in providing a flexible, transparent, objective and simple CSR system. This paper describes the development of a case-based CSR system. The results of this paper should improve our understanding on the process of CSR, evaluation criteria and information requirements. The case-based CSR model will also help formulate a more structured standard for the evaluation of subcontractors. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.