Abstract
Performance measurement has received substantial attention from researchers and the construction industry over the past two decades. This study sought to assess UK practitioners’ awareness of the importance of the use of appropriate performance measures and its role in supporting the application of Lean Construction (LC) concepts. To enable the study to achieve its objectives, a review of a range of measurements developed to evaluate project performance including those devoted to support LC efforts was conducted. Consequently a questionnaire survey was developed and sent to 198 professionals in the UK construction industry as well as a small sample of academics with an interest in LC. Results indicated that although practitioners recognise the importance of the selection of non-financial performance measures, it has not been properly and widely implemented. The study identified the most common techniques used by UK construction organisations for performance measurement, and ranked a number of non-financial key performance indicators as significant. Some professed to have embraced the Last Planner System methodology as a means for performance measurement and organisational learning, while further questioning suggested otherwise. It was also suggested that substance thinking amongst professionals could be a significant hidden barrier that militates against the successful implementation of LC.
Highlights
A growing number of companies worldwide began to recognise the benefits that could be achieved from adopting the lean construction (LC) approach (Arbulu and Zabelle, 2006)
Research Results and Analysis Techniques used by construction organisations for performance measurement A range of measurements developed to evaluate project performance were identified from literature and introduced to a question, in order to allow the study to identify the most common techniques used by construction organisations for performance measurement
The responses revealed that result-oriented Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the most common technique used amongst construction organisations for performance measurement
Summary
A growing number of companies worldwide began to recognise the benefits that could be achieved from adopting the lean construction (LC) approach (Arbulu and Zabelle, 2006). A number of studies in countries across the globe have revealed that the application of lean principles to construction has not been successful due to a number of critical factors/barriers (Olatunji, 2008; Senaratne and Wijesiri, 2008; Abdullah et al, 2009; Mossman, 2009a) One of these factors is the failure to use appropriate process performance measurement systems (PMS); which is crucial to support the implementation of LC (Sarhan and Fox, 2012). Process performance measurements have received substantial attention from academic researchers over the past two decades, the construction industry still has a preference for measureing performance in terms of time and cost (Bowen et al, 2002; Forbes et al, 2002) These traditional (results-based) performance preferences measured in projects, costs and schedule, are not appropriate for continuous improvement because they are not effective in identifying the root-causes of quality and productivity losses (Alarcon and Serpell, 1996). Based on a review of a range of measurements developed to evaluate project performance including those devoted to support lean construction efforts, as well as a systematic consideration to the series of work done by Rooke et al (2003; 2004; 2007), this research carried out a survey among UK professionals to assess their awareness of the importance of the use/selection of appropriate performance measures, crucial to support the implementation of the LC approach
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