PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Thesis Keith Gale 2013School, 2008) to determine effectiveness of monitoring overall performance of theconstruction sector and to gauge progress towards Rethinking Construction targets.In this review data was collected from a range of sources, including nationalstatistics, but added by voluntary views collated from commissioned surveys.Although results from relative distributions of surveys to suppliers and clients weresmall, an attempt was made to reflect industry culture. Key findings from the reviewwere:• Total cost of preparation, management of data collection and publicationwas around £1m per annum funded between participants to the KPI processand central government by equal contributions. As the data results onlyrepresented around 400 projects, the cost of setting up and managing KPIdata was significant.• An overall view from responders’ to the benchmarking process waspositive, but participants to the study had modified standard KPI’s to suittheir particular circumstances.• Overwhelming strong support was received for a formal measurementsystem for performance improvement, irrespective of the actual KPI’s used.• Doubts over the comparability of data inhibited a significant proportion ofparticipants from using results taken from the national distributions tobenchmark themselves against other organisations.• Organisations had used favourable data from KPI’s in marketing responsesto tender invitations.• KPI use was only effective in demonstrating performance to public sectorbodies and social housing organisations. Benchmarking parameters such ascost per square metre for residential housing was useful but wider projectcharacteristics for civil engineering schemes and the like made comparisondifficult and unreliable.• Respondents could not put any monetary value on benefits of using KPI’s.In addition, the review authors felt that bias could exist towards presenting anoptimistic view of industry performance, particularly for indicators that dependedupon individuals’ perceptions. Reservations about reliability with comparison of theyear-to-year trends were also a concern as data parameters tended to wander from the23