An analysis on the HVAC maintenance contractors selection process

The growing importance of the maintenance industry renews the interest of both practioners and academia working in the maintenance field. In the past or even now, most of the maintenance work contractors are selected purely on basis of the lowest tender prices, even though they are required to be undergone the pre-qualification process. However, it is increasingly admitted that the practice of awarding tenders on a basis of low tender price eventually would lead to the ultimate quality problems. In consequence, there is a serious outcry in the public sector demanding a revolution in the current tender awarding system., Accordingly, this study intends to test how different managers actually choose maintenance contractors. This in turn would lead us to focus on the identification of the major selection attributes, and the trade-off weightings among attributes during the selection process. In this study, the identification and the trade-off weightings for different contractors selection attributes are revealed by conjoint analysis. Meanwhile, a Likert scale rating is also used to reveal whether there are disparities between the relative perceived importance and the relative weights in actual selection in the contractors selection attributes. Our results found that there are some consistencies in the relative perceived importance and the relative weights in actual contractor selection. On the other hand, our results also reveal that the contractors should put more effort in improving their company reputation in order to win the maintenance contracts. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.