Optimization of the Supplier Selection Process in Prefabrication Using BIM

Abstract

Prefabrication offers substantial benefits including reduction in construction waste, material waste, energy use, labor demands, and delivery time, and an improvement in project constructability and cost certainty. As the material cost accounts for nearly 70% of the total cost of the prefabrication project, to select a suitable material supplier plays an important role in such a project. The purpose of this study is to present a method for supporting supplier selection of a prefabrication project. The proposed method consists of three parts. First, a list of assessment criteria was established to evaluate the suitability of supplier alternatives. Second, Building Information Modelling (BIM) was adopted to provide sufficient information about the project requirements and suppliers’ profiles, which facilitates the storage and sharing of information. Finally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank the importance of the assessment criteria and obtain the score of supplier alternatives. The suppliers were ranked based on the total scores. To illustrate how to use the proposed method, it was applied to a real prefabrication project. The proposed method facilitates the supplier selection process by providing sufficient information in an effective way and by improving the understanding of the project requirements.