A methodology to select construction equipment

Planning in the construction industry, as is well known plays an important part in the successful outcome of a project. How a task has to be dealt with and with which tools is part of the engineers work load and it is in their responsibility to assure that this planned work is carried out on time and within its constraints. Construction equipment is among these tools that have to be carefully chosen. The traditional way to choose equipment was by its performance, in terms of maximum productivity at the lowest cost. Present pressures from governments and other institutional agencies as well as general conscience are forcing the construction industry to further adopt safety and environmental aspects in their normal way of functioning, and so every activity or process that a company carries out has to be rethought in order to achieve this integration of other parameters. The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research project for creating a methodology to select construction equipment, combining the use of several well known methods for each of the aspects involved in the selection and using the multi-criteria analysis to reach at the final choice or recommendation.