Robust optimization model for traceable procurement of construction materials considering contract claims

In claim contracts, project owners and contractors set negotiated prices and exemption amounts for price adjustments to deal with the uncertainty of material prices, which is often overlooked in the optimization of procurement strategies. Therefore, considering contract claims, this paper constructs an optimization model for contractors’ traceable procurement strategies to address the multi-stage, multi-source procurement issue. A robust optimization model is used to consider the uncertainty of procurement prices, and the robust parameter is set to flexibly control the robustness of the solutions. The results indicate that contractors with different risk attitudes have the same preference for the exemption amount, but they exhibit varying sensitivities to the exemption amount and also have different preferences regarding the negotiated price. Furthermore, the study reveals that negotiated price exerts an anchoring effect on the procurement strategies of contractors.