Developing an Integrated Procure-to-Pay and Source-to-Contract Digital Framework for Construction Supply Chain Efficiency in Saudi Arabia

Procurement in construction in Saudi Arabia is a highly fragmented process operating across project organisations, specialist contractors and a wide range of dispersed suppliers. This fragmentation means that there is a significant disconnect between the strategic sourcing decisions and the actual transactions that take place in the delivery and payment of materials, equipment and services. This review proposes an integrated digital framework that links Source-to-Contract (S2C) with Procure-to-Pay (P2P), with construction-specific evidence, contractual authority and supplier involvement being the key design constraints. The framework is the result of a structured integrative review of 30 journal papers from the period 2020 to 2025, which were analysed thematically with respect to e-procurement, construction supply chains, information interoperability, payment governance and digital adoption. The review identifies five recurring integration failures: inconsistent master data, separation of contract and operational records, poor linkage of physical progress, fragmented exception handling and uneven levels of organisational readiness. The proposed framework addresses these through the use of a governed supplier and contract register, project coded requisition controls, evidence linked receipt and valuation, invoice reconciliation and an auditable analytics layer. It clearly distinguishes between deterministic control rules and optional advanced technologies (including model based quantity extraction and distributed verification). Performance is assessed in terms of traceability, procurement lead time, first pass match, payment predictability, supplier access and disruption response rather than on the basis of any assumed cost savings. The contribution is a process to data architecture and a staged implementation methodology which is appropriate for Saudi construction programmes, with the boundaries of the approach being clearly defined by procurement regulations, contract provisions and information quality. As the framework is based on a review of the published literature rather than on a live implementation it provides a set of testable design propositions rather than any unproven operational results.