Söderholm, E and Johnsson, H (2009) Housing design performance: How is it measured? In: Dainty, A R J (ed.) Proceedings of 25th Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2009, Nottingham, UK.
Abstract
Industrialisation involves reoccurring tasks and interfaces, which enables companies to work with continuous improvements of the process. In order to determine the effects of undertaken measures as well as enhance the manageability of the process, it is important to find measurements for effectiveness and efficiency of the construction design process. The aim of this paper is to serve as a gap analysis regarding the differences between current practice and the characteristics of performance measurement found in literature. This study is based on interviews with middle-managers at six industrial housing companies and four construction engineering consultant firms in Sweden, in order to explore the current methods of performance measuring in the construction design phase. The result shows that the studied companies currently have a limited use of measures and that the present measurements do not serve as a means of control for the design process or enable follow ups of undertaken improvements. For extended control and continuous improvement of the design process additional methods for measuring are required.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction design process; design management; off-site production; performance measurement |
| Index terms: | effectiveness, design phase, off-site production, design management, housing design, construction engineering, housing, gap analysis, design process, efficiency, manager, performance measurement, interview, Sweden, consultant firm, industrialization, continuous improvement |
| Subjects: | design process, Geography, performance management, engineering methods, performance measurement, manufacturing engineering, economic development, design methods, practitioner, organization, construction type, data collection methods, professional practice |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Sustainability, Construction Technology, Engineering Principles, Geographical Context, Research Practice, Organizational Design, Design Practice, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
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