Performance Measurement & Benchmarking

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Creating and maintaining the built environment is an exercise in identifying and mitigating risk. However, poor outcomes still too often surprise us.  Often a very strong project result just counterbalances the effect of a number of poor outcomes. Consistency remains a significant stumbling block. 

Procurement is too often done on the basis of anecdotal information relating to the best performance a service provider has been known to deliver rather than a rational assessment of what level of service can be reliably and consistently provided. When things do go wrong, we often rely on intuition to find solutions in the absence of tools which could have provided advanced warning and better pinpointed areas of difficulty.

Excellent outcomes can be the function of an exceptional key relationship. However, reliance on this is unlikely to provide consistent and predictable outcomes over the longer term. A more rational on-going basis of performance measurement and maintenance is needed.

Constructing Excellence NZ launched a comprehensive but practical framework for performance benchmarking in New Zealand in 2005. For the past 7 years Constructing Excellence NZ has been providing performance benchmarking services for both capital projects and infrastructure maintenance to a range of Clients including:

  • Leading vertical constructors
  • Leading Horizontal constructors including major infrastructure alliance teams.
  • Government infrastructure agencies such as NZTA, Corrections and Defence covering both capital works programmes and facilities maintenance
  • Local Authorities

The core benefits of measuring project performance are many and often immediate. Prominent Client and contracting organisations in New Zealand with just a short benchmarking history and a commitment to act on the results have dramatically improved specific performance across time, cost and quality parameters and most importantly service through the eyes of the Client. Tangible benefits include:

  • Providing the assurance and confidence that best practice standards are being met. And that best value is being achieved 
  • Aggregation demonstrates year on year improvements in the delivery of a framework contract or in an organisation’s performance.
  • Improvement efforts are focussed on the areas where performance is demonstrably poor.
  • The better players can demonstrate that they are measurably better and set themselves apart from the ‘also rans’ in the market place.
  • Internal performance targets are based on the best which has been achieved. ‘It can’t be done’ is no longer an argument.

Constructing Excellence NZ are at the forefront of performance benchmarking programme development and execution in New Zealand.

Our consulting team have had extensive practical experience in building and operating benchmarking programmes in Client, design professional and constructor environments and in the design of integrated continuous performance programmes.

We recognise that there are two challenges in first weighing the pig and secondly making it fatter!