Performance measurement to aid decision making in the budgeting process for apartment-building construction: Case study using MCDA-c

The construction environment has become increasingly complex and dynamic because of increased competitiveness and new technological and market practices, all of which require fast, accurate answers from decision makers. In this context, performance indicators have been used as the basis for decision support by various sectors of the construction industry. The Brazilian apartment building - construction sector is the industry sector with the highest individual contribution (on the basis of gross domestic product) to the construction process, mostly composed of small- and medium-sized businesses. In the residential-construction sector, most decisions are made in very unstructured and intuitive ways, and the initial budgeting process is one of the most critical phases because of the high level of uncertainty in a project's early stages. In addition, most methods for measuring performance on the basis of indicators have been developed without regard to the preferences and values of the persons responsible for improving the unique environment in which budgeting problems occur. Using the multicriteria decision aid-constructivist methodology (MCDA-C), a framework for budget performance evaluation for apartment-building projects was developed in which the characteristics of the context evaluated have been identified, organized, measured, and integrated according to the decision maker's values and preferences. The framework enables decision makers to understand the current situation more accurately with respect to each criterion evaluated and to the whole. This allows planning actions to improve the budget process to ensure better quality and accuracy, determine the impact of such actions on the overall assessment of the context, and prioritize actions according to goals. Performance-evaluation models built with the MCDA-C have the capacity to generate knowledge concerning the contexts decision makers intend to improve and can be used as tools to produce competitive advantages.