EQUAL: a case-based contractor prequalifier

Many researchers have observed that contractor prequalification relies heavily on expert judgement. Experiential judgement is required in decision situations when it would be too costly to measure a large amount of information quantitatively and it is also invaluable in providing shortcuts for complex tasks. However, the quality of heuristic knowledge depends upon the experiences of the decision-makers. The development and use of a case-based reasoning (CBR) system can help decision-makers to produce more reliable and expeditious decisions for contractor prequalification. An Expert preQUALifier — EQUAL — has been developed using the CBR approach. This paper describes the components of EQUAL and illustrates the functionality and operation of the system through a trial run with hypothetical cases. The results of testing reveal that experts were satisfied with the accuracy and overall performance of EQUAL, and CBR approach is suitable for modeling the contractor prequalification domain.