Langston, C (2013) The application of data envelopment analysis to the benchmarking of construction performance in Australian and American high-rise buildings. International Journal of Construction Management, 13(3), pp. 55-75. ISSN 1562-3599
Abstract
The measurement of construction performance is a vexed problem. Despite much research effort, there remains little agreement over what to measure and how to measure it. The problem is made even more complicated by the desire to benchmark national industry performance against that of other countries. As clearly construction cost forms part of the analysis, the mere adjustment of cost data to an 'international currency' has undermined past attempts to draw any meaningful conclusions. The aim in this paper is to develop a method for benchmarking construction projects on the basis of their integrated time, cost and quality performance, and test it using what is understood to be one of the largest collections of construction project data ever assembled across two sample countries: Australia and the United States. The research draws on 337 high-rise projects of 20 storeys or more, completed between 2003 (i.e. 5 years pre-GFC) and 2012 (i.e. 5 years post-GFC), throughout the five largest cities in Australia and the United States, representing two-thirds of the known population of such buildings in these locations. Performance outputs of construction efficiency and construction complexity are selected to enable projects to be ranked and mapped via data envelopment analysis to identify potential instances of best practice worthy of further investigation. Furthermore, using a four-quadrant model to aid interpretation, it is clear that obtaining best practice in both efficiency (i.e. construction speed) and complexity (i.e. product sophistication) is very challenging and often mutually-exclusive. The use of a four-quadrant model combined with DEA provides context to the analysis. The scales for CE and CC applied in this research render the majority of projects to the 'normal (typical)' quadrant, demonstrating that fast construction speed and high product sophistication are often mutually-exclusive. This is a significant wake-up call for the industry and highlights the marked difference between 'business-asusual' and achieving 'best practice'.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Australia; benchmarking; construction productivity; data envelopment analysis; purchasing power parity; United States |
| Index terms: | United States, construction project, population, complexity, benchmarking, high-rise building, efficiency, Australia, purchasing, construction performance, construction cost, investigation, quality performance, best practice, industry performance, data envelopment analysis, construction productivity, cost data |
| Subjects: | operations management, financial and cost management, project delivery, performance assessment, data analysis and analytics, business, data collection methods, construction type, demography, systems engineering, financial analysis, procurement strategy, performance management, accounting and finance, performance measurement, production management, Geography |
| Topics: | Project Management, Geographical Context, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Construction Technology, Procurement, Quality Management, Urban Studies, Site Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here