Modeling Bid/No bid decision using adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS): A case study

Bid/no bid decisions are crucial for the business continuity of a contractor. Thus, the decision should be made carefully within the context of the short- and long-term strategy of the organization. Despite the availability of several models, this decision commonly is made based on past experience and subjective judgments. This study aims to show how ANFIS can be used as a decision support tool by contractors during the bid/no bid decision process for international construction projects. Review of the literature revealed that 52 factors may affect a contractor's bid/no bid decision. These factors were categorized into six main groups, which are bidding documents-related factors, contractor-related factors, project-related factors, contract-related factors, host country-related factors, and opportunity-related factors. Having identified these factors, a questionnaire was designed to identify each factor's relative importance. The questionnaire was applied to a large-scale contractor, and actual data from 151 international projects were obtained. An ANFIS model was developed via MATLAB software program using the collected data. The proposed ANFIS model integrates the learning advantage of neural networks with fuzzy logic that represents the human reasoning mechanism. The statistical indicators revealed that the performance of the proposed model is satisfactory.