Construction procurement based on concurrent engineering principles Available to Purchase

Unlike in the manufacturing industries, participants of a construction project operate in a temporary multi‐disciplinary organisation in which the relationship ends as soon as the project is completed. Several project procurement systems such as the traditional procurement system (TPS) and its hybrids, design and build (D&B), and build, operate and transfer (BOT), have been developed and are in use in many countries. However, a study carried out in Botswana by means of interviews of professionals and clients in the built environment found an overwhelming consensus that the procurement systems used in the country are inadequate in meeting the normal client requirements and at worst, they are adversarial. There was also a consensus that a procurement system that is based on concurrent engineering (CE) principles may alleviate these problems. Several barriers to adopting CE principles in the construction industry were raised during the interviews. The paper discusses how CE principles may be used to form a procurement system and concludes by proposing the measures that may be taken to overcome the barriers to this approach.