The Dutch Construction Industry: An Overview and Its Use of Performance Information

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the Dutch Construction industry and elaborates further on its use of performance information. After giving an overview of the Dutch construction industry depicting size, major contractors, growth, profitability, value added, costs, productivity, this section is concluded by giving future predictions of the industry for the following years. A summary is given of the 2002 Dutch construction collusion as a means to give explanations for the persistent use of procurement based on lowest-bid competition. Although a starting realization is recognizable towards more innovative ways of tendering to restore trust and bilateral relationships between constructors and their clients; change is slow as hard data of performance information is limited. Current available performance information of the Dutch construction industry is discussed, such as failure rate and costs, bottlenecks, procurement methods used, customer satisfaction and selection criteria. As seen throughout this paper, innovative ways of procurement can contribute to the changes aspired to by the Dutch construction industry as well as bring in added value. Government plays a central role as a major client and frontrunner and also with the means of regulating policy on procurement for the industry. Although new initiatives of change towards more innovative ways of tendering are starting to build with cooperation between companies and industry platforms, it remains still in its infancy.