PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK FOR ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS OF TAIPEI RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEMS

The quality of performance evaluation on engineering consultants that provide design-related technical services is difficult to be measured, and only a handful of papers discussed the quality during the design stage. Although design cost is relatively far less than construction cost for a project, the decisions made in the design phase have a significant impact on the final products of the project, especially for large public construction projects. Therefore, this research focuses on reviewing and then establishing a performance evaluation framework for the consulting firms that execute detailed design and provide technical services for the Taipei Rapid Transit Systems (TRTS). By interviewing experts, this study first established a set of indicators to evaluate these firms' performance. Then, those indicators were incorporated into the four aspects of balanced scorecard (BSC) to establish the architecture of the evaluation mechanism. The weight of each indicator was calculated by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) from a survey conducted among experts. The results showed that the top-three indicators were quantity take-off, functions conformity, and budgeting. The framework of performance evaluation established by this study can be applied to measure service performance during the design stage. It not only facilitates the monitoring of consulting firms, but also helps to reduce unnecessary change orders and disputes during the construction stage.