Knowledge‐Based Design of Project‐Procurement Process

The rapidly changing technical and economic conditions in the building industry have cumulatively rendered the traditional building process inadequate as an effective way to procure buildings. To counter the shortcomings of the traditional building process in dealing with the emerging conditions, the building industry has come up with a large number of alternative ways to organize the process. This proliferation of alternative building‐procurement strategies, however, has created another serious problem of its own: With a large number of different ways to organize the building process at hand, how should a potential building owner determine the most effective procurement strategy for his particular needs? This paper reports a knowledge‐based expert system, Project Acquisition Strategy Consultant (PASCON), developed especially to help the potential building owner in designing the most appropriate project‐procurement strategy for his particular needs and constraints.