Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 3(12): 1358-1365, 2011 ISSN: 2040-7467 © Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2011 Submitted: June 22, 2011 Accepted: August 27, 2011 Published: December 26, 2011 Corresponding Author: Mahmoud Sodangi, Civil Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia 1358 Decision Criteria for Selecting Main Contractors in Malaysia Arazi Idrus, Mahmoud Sodangi and Mohamad Afeq Amran Civil Engineering Department, University Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia Abstract: During the tendering phase of a project, selecting the most appropriate main contractor to implement the project can be difficult. There are many main contractor selection criteria that can be found in the literature but in real practice, clients may have their different criteria. The purpose of this study is to identify and rank the actual criteria used by clients for the selection of main contractors from current practice in Malaysia. The ranking is based on the relative importance of the criteria as perceived by professionals operating in the Malaysian construction industry using their accumulated experience and judgment. The objective of this study was investigated through a postal questionnaire which covered a selected sample of 150 construction professionals operating in Malaysia. Data were analyzed using frequency and severity index analyses. The results of this study show that track performance, financial capacity and technical capacity were the most important criteria considered crucial by the respondents for the selection of main contractors from current practice in Malaysia. This study provides supportive practical solution for Malaysian clients to enhance and improve their contractor selection processes in order to have successful completion of construction projects that would meet their requirements and increase their satisfaction levels. Key words: Client, construction, professional, project, survey INTRODUCTION Generally, successful completion of construction projects requires many important processes and one of them is the bidding process. During the bidding process, selecting the most appropriate contractors to execute the project seems to be quite difficult. Contractor selection plays a vital role in the overall success of any construction project. Clients generally need the best criteria in selecting contractors in order to get best results in term of cost, time, and quality for their projects. Historically, clients usually award the contract to the lowest bidder during tendering. Despite the guidelines that exist in the literature in selecting main contractors; in real practice, Malaysian construction clients individually have their preferred criteria different from those obtained in the literature. The main threat here is that clients do make costly mistakes in their decisions to award the contracts to unqualified contractors and this would eventually have damaging consequences on the project and clients’ investment. It therefore became necessary to examine the different criteria adopted by clients in selecting contractors in Malaysia in order to find out the most important criteria that clients should focus on when awarding construction contracts to main contractors. To this regard, this paper is aimed at identifying and ranking the actual criteria used by clients in real practice for the selection of main contractors in Malaysia. LITERATURE REVIEW Various studies have been undertaken by experts regarding the issue of contractor selection for implementing construction projects. Holt et al. (1994) identified prequalification criteria to be included in the quantitative model for choosing main contractors. Ahmed and Kangari (1995) carried out a survey with 101 client companies to find out the factors that the clients consider as being the most significant when dealing with contractor organizations and hence develop a client-satisfaction model. Holt et al. (1995) revealed that the choice of contractor should be made on a value for money basis rather than automatically accepting the lowest bid because the main objective is to identify best tender not lowest bidder. Bubshait and Al-Gobali (1996) determined the criteria that are considered in prequalification practices for private and semi public projects in Saudi Arabia. Hatush and Skitmore (1997) focused on identifying universal criteria for prequalification and bid evaluation. Their results show that the most common criteria considered by clients are those pertaining to financial soundness, technical ability, management capability and health and safety performance of contractors. Holt (1997) explained the cluster analysis technique in a contractor valuation and selection setting. Hatush and Skitmore (1998) described a systematic multi criteria decision analysis method for contractor selection based on utility