Assessing the Applicability of Collaborative Procurement in Iranian Construction Industry

Since some of the recent prominent change faced by the construction industry, collaborative procurement has been prosperous in recent years. This new approach has been proved widely applicable within construction projects of United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, Sweden, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Japan; however, Application and generalization of construction partnering in Iran is still in its inception. Through extensive literature review and data collected via semi-structured interviews and questionnaire in large contractor firms in construction industry, presented conceptual framework for assessing applicability of partnering in Iran’s construction industry. The essential context for overall assessment is summarized in two categories. First one is motivator elements –such as benefits, positive effects of partnering on project performance and technical and economic needs of organization- that encourage firms to participate in collaborative approach. On the other hand the expectations of a rapid movement toward integrated and collaborative systems were unrealistic, since this shift would need major modification of current conditions. Unfortunately like any new process, there are lots of challenges to implementing collaborative delivery method. These obstacles categorized in six distinct perspectives - organizational, cultural, economical, juridical/political, technical and individual barriers-. The main purpose of this paper is to identify main barriers in implementing collaborative procurement in Iranian construction industry. This study uses a hybrid MCDM model based on analytic network process(FANP) and FDEMATEL technique to prioritize barriers. To this end, designing a fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy ANP questionnaire sent to twenty experts at partnering field in the construction industry. With using DEMATEL mathematical model, causal relations and their effects on each other are determined. Research results indicate that on one hand social barriers and on other hand political/juridical barriers are the most influence and the strongest connection to other criteria. Then based on these causal relations, factors are prioritized with using pairwise comparison logic and fuzzy group ANP method and the relative importance of each factor on application of partnering determined. The findings show that the collaborative approach could counter some of the requirements associated with the Iranian construction sector, although the implementation of this method face complications, mainly in terms of cultural change requirements , organizational barriers and political/juridical barriers. Also, using the calculation results, strategies were suggested separately for barriers in order to reduce their effect and facilitate movement toward more collaborative approach in the region.