A TOPSIS-Based Decision Model to Establish Priorities for Sequencing the Design of Construction Projects in the Public Sector

Abstract

The availability of resources regarding budget and personnel for infrastructure development in the public sector is increasingly scarce, prioritizing personnel payments and basic expenses. Therefore, there is a need to prioritize the design of maintenance, refurbishment, and construction projects. Also, it is necessary to validate their impact and necessity before allocating public resources. The main contribution of this paper is a framework proposed to handle these issues frequently found in the public sector with a multicriteria approach, considering strategic and service aspects. To illustrate the proposed model, we considered the context of a federal institution of higher education that offers an infrastructure for about forty thousand students. This public institution is affected by issues of conjuncture and opportunities arising from political moments that hinder consistent programming for better allocation of these resources. Similarly to other institutions in the public sector, the chosen one has to cope with several demands for construction projects. However, limited resources and personnel to carry out those project designs are subject to the uncertainty of not having the financial resources to implement these construction projects. Or even worse, when unforeseen, funds to carry out specific projects arise without a feasible time to design those construction projects that the public institution did not prioritize. Thus, another contribution of the decision model proposed in this paper is to enable the department responsible for projects to establish the ranking for the project design, considering the multiple criteria that reflect the institution’s needs. Among the advantages perceived from this real application, there is a priority ranking resulting from a mathematical model based on the TOPSIS method, which is easy to understand. Furthermore, the proposed approach gives the transparency and reproducibility required in such a public and democratic environment, enabling transparency on the criteria considered in the allocation process for all personnel involved considering the actors that manage the resources and those which demand the project design services.