Performance evaluation mechanism for engineering consultants - Cases study on Taipei rapid transit systems

Engineering consultation is a knowledge intensive industry. It operates by providing design-related technical services. Although design cost is relatively far less than construction cost, the decisions made in the design phase have a significant impact on the project, especially for large public construction projects. Therefore, this research focuses on establishing a performance evaluation mechanism for the consulting firms that execute detailed design for the Taipei Rapid Transit Systems (TRTS). This research first established a set of indicators through literatures and expert interview. Then, those indicators were incorporated into the four aspects of balanced scorecard (BSC) to create the structure of performance evaluation. The weight of each indicator was calculated by analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Lastly, the performance of two TRTS design firms was evaluated using the developed model. Correspondence was found between the evaluation results and the actual performance of the sampled consulting firms. This shows the accuracy of the evaluation method and presents, objectively and explicitly, the performance of the consulting firms. The established mechanism of performance evaluation will be further extended for construction phase in the future.