IMPROVING PERFORMANCE THROUGH

MEASUREMENT: THE APPLICATION OF LEAN

PRODUCTION AND ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING

PRINCIPLES

Elvira Lantelme¹ and Carlos T. Formoso²

ABSTRACT

Performance measurement is an essential element of production management. It provides the necessary information for process control, and makes it possible to establish challenging and feasible goals. It is also necessary to support the implementation of business strategies.

Despite the fact that construction managers recognise the importance of performance measurement, it has not been widely implemented in this industry. Most managers still make decisions mostly based on their intuition and common sense, and on a few broad financial measures which are no longer adequate in todayrsquo;s competitive environment.

In the Lean Construction theoretical framework, performance measurement plays an important role in terms of providing process transparency. It makes visible attributes that are usually invisible, and helps the employees to see how they are performing, creating conditions for decentralised control to be implemented.

A number of studies have investigated the use of measures for evaluating the impact of improvement programs in production systems. However, few them are concerned with the problem of implementing measurement systems in organisations. Although choosing the right measures is important, it is also necessary to enable people to use measures in their routine work, so that root causes of problems are identified and corrective action implemented.

This article proposes a number of guidelines to implement performance measurement systems in construction firms, considering both the lean construction theoretical framework and organisational learning principles. This study is based on the development of a system of performance indicators developed for the construction industry in Brazil, and also on a number of interviews carried out with managers who have been involved in the implementation of measures in their companies.

KEYWORDS

Performance measurement, organisational learning, lean construction

1. MSc, PhD candidate at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Building Innovation Research Group (NORIE), Brazil,

e-mail: lantelme@cpgec.ufrgs.br.

1. PhD., Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Building Innovation Research Group (NORIE), Brazil, Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, e-mail: formoso@vortex.ufrgs.br

INTRODUCTION

Several authors state that business performance can be enhanced by developing and implementing a balanced set of measures (Hall et al., 1991; Kaplan and Norton, 1992; Neely et al., 1996) . Performance measurement plays an important role focusing people and resources on particular aspects of a business. Schieman and Lingle (1999), based on a survey with more than two hundred executives, concluded that measurement-managed companies exhibit better performance compared to their non measurement-managed counterparts.

Since the early eighties, the dissemination of the Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy in Western countries has encouraged many companies to develop and implement performance measurement systems. In fact, some of the basic principles of TQM are strongly related to the use of measures, such as: provide feedback based on actual data, build continuous improvement into the process, and encourage the participation of employees in the decisions.

The application of the Toyota Production System (Lean Production) concepts and principles in several industries has also contributed for the widespread use of performance measurements. In the Toyota Production System, measurement systems are strongly related to decentralised control. Measures are intensively used in the learning process at the operational level, by helping the employees to see how they are performing, rather than simply to feedback data for the central control function.

However, the use of performance measurement is generally poorly explored in organisations. In many companies, managers tend to make their decisions mostly based on their intuition and common sense. Moreover, existing performance measurement systems are based on financial measures that have been strongly criticised for being out of step with recent changes in the industry related to the introduction of new technologies and to the growing competition (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). Among other problems, they tend to be backward focused, do not make it easy to trace operational costs, and fail to monitor the benefits of new investments (Berliner and Brimson, 1988).

The lack of performance measurement is a problem that also affects the construction industry. This is to a great extent related to the attitude and lack of training of managers. Generally, they are used to making their decisions based on intuition and experience, rather than on data collected through formal procedures. Moreover, devising a performance measurement system in the construction industry is a relatively difficult task for the following reasons:

1. Construction is a project oriented industry: the product is usually unique in terms of design and site conditions, and a temporary organisation needs to be created for each project;
2. Construction projects tend to be relatively complex: there is a wide variety of materials and components involved, many different agents take part in the process, and the final product has a large number of performance attributes.

The development of a performance measurement system usually starts with the selection of a set of m

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通过评估提高绩效:精益生产和组织学习原则的应用

Elvira Lantelme¹ and Carlos T. Formoso

摘要:

生产管理的绩效评估是一个重要的元素。它为过程控制提供了必要的信息,可以建立具有挑战性的和可行的目标。这也是为了支持企业战略的实现。

尽管施工管理人员认识到绩效评估的重要性,它在这个行业并没有得到广泛执行。大多数经理仍然主要基于直觉和常识,以及一些广泛的、在当今激烈的环境中不再是很充足的金融措施来进行决策。

在精益建设的理论框架、绩效评估提供过程透明度方面起着重要的作用。它使通常是无形的属性变为可见的,并帮助员工看到他们是如何执行,为实现分散控制创造条件。

大量的研究调查了评估评估的使用对生产系统改进项目的影响。然而, 他们很少去关心在组织中实施评估系统的问题。尽管选择正确的评估是非常重要的,它也是必要的去确保人们在日常工作中使用评估,这样问题的根源就可以被确定并且矫正的动作得以实施。

本文提出了一些指导方针,在建筑公司实施绩效评估系统,同时评估系统考虑到精益建造理论框架和组织学习的原则。这项研究是基于在巴西为了建筑行业开发的绩效指标系统,并且也基于一直在他们公司参与实现评估的经理的一些采访。

关键词:绩效评估、组织学习、精益建设;

引出:

某些作者提出通过开发和实施一套平衡的评估可以提高业务绩效。(郝...,1991;卡普兰和诺顿,1992;尼利...,1996)。绩效评估在把人和资源集中在业务的特定方面中扮演着重要的角色。谢尔曼和林格尔(1999)通过基于二百多位高管的调查,得出的结论是,评估被监管的公司和非评估被监管的同行相比前者具有更好的绩效。

年代初以来,全面质量管理(TQM)的传播哲学在西方国家鼓励许多公司制定和实施绩效评估系统。事实上,一些全面质量管理的基本原则和评估的使用强烈相关,如:根据实际数据提供反馈,构建持续改进过程,并鼓励员工参与决策。

丰田生产系统的应用(精益生产)的概念和原则在几个行业为广泛的使用绩效估量做贡献。在丰田生产系统,评估系统和分散控制紧密相关。评估在操作水平的学习过程中通过帮助员工看到他们是如何执行,而不是简单地为中央控制功能反馈数据被集中的使用。

然而,绩效评估的使用通常很少在组织中被发掘。在许多公司,经理往往做出决定主要是靠他们的直觉和常识。此外,现有的绩效评估系统是基于金融评估,以至于它被强烈批评了相关的行业新技术的引入和日益激烈的竞争的变化(卡普兰和诺顿,1992)。其他问题中,他们往往后知后觉,包括不方便于对运营成本的跟踪,对新投资优点的失败监控(柏林和格里森,1988)。

绩效评估的缺乏是一个问题,同时也影响到了建筑行业。这是在很大程度上与管理者的态度和缺乏培训息息相关。一般来说,它们被用来做决定基于直觉和经验,而不是通过正式程序收集的数据。此外,设计一个绩效评估系统在建筑行业是一个比较困难的任务,原因如下:

(a)项目建设是面向工业的:产品在设计和现场条件上是独特的,还有就是一个临时组织需要为每个项目创建;

(b)建设项目往往是相对复杂的:有各种各样的材料和组件,许多不同的代理参与在这个过程中,并且最终的产品有大量的绩效属性。

绩效评估系统的发展通常始于一套评估的选择。一些已发表的论文强调了选择一套平衡的措施与组织的战略目标的重要性。最常见的方法之一是卡普兰和诺顿提出的平衡计分卡(1996)。那些作者提出了一个开发绩效评估系统的模型,包括财务和非财务衡量分组,它们根据四个主要标题:客户的角度来看,金融的角度来看,内部业务的角度来看,创新和学习的角度来看。根据瓦格纳...(1999)人们倾向于在可以评估的东西提供更多的重视。这表明足够的措施的选择对实现策略和改良计划的发展有重要的影响。

尽管使用声音选择标准设置的指标的重要性必须承认,但这篇文章是专门针对施工组织在实现过程中所面临的困难。这些困难关心于数据收集、处理和评价程序并持续发展的反馈过程,结果在于组织改进和学习。

研究的范围

在巴西,已经有越来越多的人意识到绩效评估在建筑业中的重要性。在过去的15年里,由于更高的竞争和更多的客户对质量的需求,许多公司已经开始参与质量和生产率的改进项目,通常基于全面质量管理的理念。

在这种情况下,合作协议在1993年被成立,涉及了建筑研究小组(NORIE)的联邦大学的南里奥格兰德(UFRGS),建筑承包商协会的南里奥格兰(SINDUSCON / RS)和微型和小型企业的支持机构(SEBRAE / RS)。本协议的目的是在建筑业中传播概念、原则和实践绩效度量,由设计部门的业绩测评系统,名叫SISIND(系统建设质量和生产率指标的行业)。SISIND项目都集中在小尺寸的建筑公司,因为它们在巴西方面的公司数量和输出上对应了一个非常大的比例的行业。

以下活动参与了SISIND项目:(a)制定一套住宅和商业建筑的工业的28日绩效指标,并且可以为特定企业当作建立了一个起点的评估;(b)产生一个出版物描述指标的集合(奥利维拉,1995);(c)在全国各地通过演讲和培训课程传播SISIND,(d)在产生一个年度报告的基础上,由合作的公司收集数据;(d)开发研究相关的定义和使用新评估的关键过程。

SISIND推出以来,一些建筑公司已经加入了这个项目,参加培训课程旨在使经理能够在他们的组织实施提出的措施。数据库包括约80家公司和200个项目已创建的数据。尽管兴趣和动机由施工经理参与的项目显示,但只有相对较少的公司能够在连续的基础上应用绩效评估。在大多数的经理眼中指出人的缺乏和时间来做这份工作的主要原因不是实施办法(Lantelme,1994)。基于这些结论,一个研究小组提出的问题是:如果管理者认识到评估的重要性和好处,为什么不能把绩效评估交给他们决策?

本文提出了一套实施建筑公司绩效评估的准则。这些都是基于文献综述和大量参与了实现绩效评估的管理者的采访:六个管理者来着建筑公司,三管理者来自其他部门(表1)。

文献综述专注于精益生产和学习组织。目的是让管理者了解在绩效评估系统和在识别方法的介绍上所面临的困难,并可以支持他们做出明确的处理。

访谈的目的是明确在建筑公司实现评估系统的主要障碍,并且也在绩效评估中确定好内外部门。建筑公司对最近开发的他们的绩效评估系统,以及基于全面质量管理的改进计划的一部分的事实进行了常规采访。其中五人已经以这样或那样的方式参与SISIND项目,并且四人最近获得ISO9001、ISO9002认证。相反,这三家公司的其他部门可以考虑评估管理组织(谢赫曼和林格尔,1999)。

采访由关心选择措施的过程中的开放式问题,数据采集和处理程序、措施,实现方面的困难,以及影响评估系统的组织所组成(莱特梅,1999)。

表1-参与采访的公司的描述

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