Factors Governing Outsourcing Engineering Consultancy in Saudi Arabian Construction Industry

Abstract

Construction Projects in the Public Sector (CPPS) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) represent large value investments. Further, the need for outsourcing engineering consultancy is becoming more and more critical for the provision of CPPS. In this paper, a total of 30 factors are identified and used in a field survey for the purpose of collecting data pertaining to the current level of outsourcing Engineering Consultancy in Construction Projects (ECCP) in the KSA. The local practices are explained, including those detailing consultants' responsibilities in CPPS, and selecting consultants based on the type of contract adopted. A detailed analysis is conducted, based on agreement tests (including the Spearman’s test and the boxplot analysis) among the experienced partners who participated in the field survey. The importance of each identified factor is determined through a simple Relative Importance Index (RII); then the factors are grouped according to the type of contract (either supervision or design contract). The results highlighted that many factors are indirectly, and not officially, used in the consultants' evaluation after selection. The paper introduces a list of governing factors for outsourcing ECCP in the KSA with relative weights; these weights can be used by the owners in evaluating and selecting the consultants and the preparation of contracts with complete clarification of the consultants' responsibilities. The list can be used by the consultants in evaluating and developing their organization, as well as focusing on their core competencies in order to accomplish their business mission.