Application of decision support tool in design-build projects: a quasi-experiment with novice decision makers

Design-Build (DB) is known as the alternative for Design-Bid-Build in the Malaysian construction industry. For DB projects, it is critical to adopt effective decision support tool to ensure the execution of a systematic decision-making technique. This study aimed to examine the impact of a decision support tool for novice decision makers to reject or adopt DB for their construction projects.

Literature review and qualitative input from experts identified several key-selection factors pertaining to critical success factors and design-build drivers. This resulted in the development of Decision Support Tool for Design-Build (DST-DB). A quasi-experiment, which involved 382 novice decision makers in the construction industry, was conducted to test the DST-DB quantitatively. The participants were required to compare two construction projects using DST-DB and traditional decision-making methods. Multivariate analysis was performed to analyse all collected data.

The quasi-experiment data suggests that DST-DB enables significantly higher usability, likelihood, precision, confidence and satisfaction rate when compared to the traditional decision-making process. The pre- and post-surveys indicated that the DST-DB is effective in improving decision-making performance through selection factors of client-briefing, maximised resources and sharing expertise. The participants also agreed that DST-DB is easy to use and helps them to gain better understanding of the decision-making process for construction projects.

This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge through the impact of DST on the decisions of novices. The novice decision makers found that DST-DB is practically adaptable and comparatively effective for decision-making process than traditional decision-making methods. This contributes to the practical application of construction companies to provide DST-DB training to the fresh graduate employees to enhance their competencies in the decision-making process.