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

Thesis Keith Gale 2013original measurement points. Nonetheless, use of key performance indicators wererecognised as relevant objectives and stated in Rethinking Construction as necessaryfor construction benchmarking. Such measurement techniques were seen as essentialtowards:• Stimulating and informing improvement actions• Informing markets for construction services• Monitoring aspects of performance of the construction industryDespite a number of concerns, the Review of Construction Key PerformanceIndicators, Final Report attempted to assess impact on the industry of theseobjectives, but an absence of reliable data prevented a calculation of the level ofbenefits to be provided. It recognised that membership of participants to theConstructing Excellence programme for collection of KPI's represents only a smallproportion of the industry as a whole and perhaps was not representative of thestructure of the industry. The report authors ultimately concluded that ‘We areunable to arrive at a meaningful figure for the value of benefits derived from theKPI’s but it is reasonable to conclude that these exceed the costs by a considerablemargin’.Despite such concerns and limitations with KPI’s, central UK government advisorscontinue to support usage of the headline performance results through the 2011 UKIndustry Performance Report (Constructing Excellence, 2011). Indicators are anaggregation from participants and therefore include an element of subjectiveinformation, but provided marking and assessment is consistent, it does allowcomparative judgements to be made. These judgements are however global –because the structure of the construction industry relies upon a large number of smallorganisations to deliver services. Capture of data from the vast majority ofcompanies is unrealistic and expensive. So a significant disconnect remains betweenindividual suppliers, individual projects and overall industry standards. This is duethe limitation of precise measurement of key indicators and the difficulty in matchingvery diverse groups of suppliers against an industry norm. Furthermore, althoughmost participants perceive value with the benefits of benchmarking, quantitativecalculation of those values are proving difficult to establish.24