Factors Influencing Project Selection for SMEs
Ahmed Ali Khan1, Mohd Khairo Anuar Mohd Ariffin2, Shamsuddin Sulaiman3, Faizal Mustapha4

1Ahmed Ali Khan, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
2Mohd Khairo Anuar Mohd Ariffin, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
3Shamsuddin Sulaiman, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
4Faizal Mustapha, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Manuscript received on 13 December 2018 | Revised Manuscript received on 25 December 2018 | Manuscript Published on 24 January 2019 | PP: 15-18 | Volume-7 Issue-4S2 December 2018 | Retrieval Number: ES2083017519/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: In this current study the authors will elaborate on the factors that influence project selection for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). There are a variety of tangible and intangible factors which impact on the decision-making, and lead organizations to choose the right project. This study focuses on 11 factors, i.e. cultural, process, knowledge of business, knowledge of work, education, experience, risk awareness, governance, selection of players, preconceptions and timeframe. The influence of these factors was determined by answering five questions which are, RQ1: Do contributors have a vision about the best practice? RQ2: What is the variance among the current practice and the best practice? RQ3: How does this vision match with what is the best practice? RQ4: Are there important factors to achieve ideal project selection? RQ5: Will these set of questions be set as a base for the decision for the achievement of ideal project selection? These factors are tested through a comprehensive questionnaire which was distributed to SME organizations. About 12 companies responded with 166 participants in total. The results were then analysed using SPSS and the outcome is in the form of a correlation for the above mentioned factors. It was found that those factors significantly influenced the manager in their project selection. Moreover, each factor has several correlations with others; however, these are different in terms of the correlation values. As the result, the authors ware able to classify the factors accordingly with relation to the correlation value level.
Keywords: Project, Influencing Factors, Risk Analysis, Risk Awareness.
Scope of the Article: Mechanical Maintenance