Perceived benefits of the best value strategy and the problems the lowest price strategy has caused in the construction industry; has led to the increase in the use of the best value strategy in selecting contractors. Whilst there is research that have tried to establish a direct relationship between a contractor selection strategy and the project outcomes, there are hardly any empirical research that tries to establish this relationship. This paper presents a quantifiable method of assessing the risk of selecting different contractor selection strategies using educational facilities projects in the UK. A Monte-Carlo simulation study was conducted to assess how the lowest priced contractor would have fared against the best value contractor had it been awarded the contract instead. It was concluded that selecting the best value contractor in educational facilities projects is not necessary in terms of cost. Furthermore, though the results are limited to educational facilities project, the method can be adapted to other sectors.

Contractor selection is one of the most important step in ensuring the success of any construction project. Failing to adequately select the winning contractor may lead to problems in the project delivery phase such as bad quality and delay in the expected project duration; which ultimately results in cost overruns. This paper presents an approach by which a what-if scenario can be analysed in educational facilities projects in the UK; therefore if the client selected the best value contractor for a project whose submitted price is not the lowest price, a what-if scenario was conducted to show how the lowest priced contractor would have fared had he/she been awarded the contract instead. This was done by analysing historic data of projects that have selected the lowest priced contractor. Then correlations were derived between variables; which was then be inputted into a Monte Carlo Simulation to analyse 3 real educational facilities projects that used a best value selection method. Using Monte Carlo Simulation allowed us to see all the possible outcomes of cost, and duration. It was concluded that selecting the best value contractor in educational facilities projects may not be necessary in terms of cost.