Journal of Civil Engineering Vol 68 No 2

Volume 68 Number 2 June 2026  Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering 14 Scenario A This scenario assumes that Contractor A has a registered company and wants to register as a contractor. The company has a certificate in water engineering and occupational health and safety, three years of relevant technical experience, has man- aged two water-related projects, and has a business account. In terms of the weight allocation as described above, Table 15 outlines how it will be annotated. To grade Contractor A, the total weight will be divided by the number of sub- criteria, which is 17, as depicted in Figures 5 and 6. The total is divided by the total number of the sub-criteria because the sub-criteria are what is considered when grading contractors. Therefore, Contractor A is a Grade 1 contractor because the overall project priority vector for Grade 1 contractors is 0.040, as shown in Table 6. Thus, anything that is below 0.040 means that the contractor is a Grade 1. To determine the performance of the contractor, the total weight is divided by 7, which is the number of main criteria. This is so because contractor performance is the overarching performance of the contractor. The contractor’s performance is for an emerging contractor because it is between 0 and 0.151, which is the overall priority vector of emerging contractors, as shown in Table 7. This is expected because Contractor A is new in the sector. Scenario B This scenario assumes that Contractor B is a registered Grade 1 contractor and wants to upgrade. The contractor has two employees with technical degrees in civil engineering, an occupational health and safety certificate, two years of relevant technical experience, has managed four civil engineering-related projects, and has a business account. Moreover, the contractor has office space and two referral letters, and 90% of its projects were com- pleted within time, cost, and the stipulated specifications. The weighting is outlined in Table 16. To grade Contractor B, the total weight will be divided by the number of sub- criteria, which is 17. 1.313475 17 = 0.07726 Therefore, Contractor B is a Grade 2 con- tractor because the overall project priority vector for Grade 2 contractors is 0.094, as shown in Table 6 – anything that is between 0.040 and 0.094 means that the contractor qualifies to be graded as a Grade 2. Scenario C This scenario considers the cidb grading criteria, which only considers track record and available capital. The assumption is that Company A is a Grade 4 contractor. Thus, the company would need to have completed projects in Grade 3 that are worth more than R3 million and have available capital of R100 000 in terms of the current cidb requirements. In terms of the enhanced grading criteria, the weight- ing of the company can be calculated based on information that would have been submitted to the cidb, shown in Table 17. Where there is no information that would have been provided to the cidb because it is required, (-) is inserted. Table 14 Weights of past performance sub-criteria Past performance Time Quality Cost Referrals Weight All projects completed timeously, within the agreed time, quality, and cost 0.0488 0.2232 0.1052 0 referrals 0 80% to 90% of projects are completed timeously within the agreed time, quality, and cost 0.0366 0.1674 0.0789 1 referral letter 0.0057 50% to 79.99% of projects completed timeously within the agreed time, quality, and cost 0.0244 0.1116 0.0526 2 referral letters 0.0114 20% to 49.99% of projects completed timeously within the agreed time, quality, and cost 0.0122 0.0558 0.0263 3 referral letters 0.0171 0% to 19.99% of projects completed timeously within the agreed time, quality, and cost 0 0 0 More than 3 referral letters 0.0228 Total 0.122 0.558 0.263 0.057 Table 15 Contractor A weighting allocation Contract A weight allocation Description 0.0633 Certificate in water engineering 0.052 3 years’ experience 0.0106 1 technical staff 0.0175 Completed two projects 0.010375 Bank account 0.0125 OHS certificate 0.0166275 Total Table 16 Contractor B weighting allocation Contract B weight allocation Description 0.3798 Two employees with civil engineering qualifications 0.052 2 years’ cumulative experience 0.0212 2 technical staff 0.035 Completed four projects 0.010375 Bank account 0.193 Office space 0.025 OHS certificate 1.313475 Total