Benchmarking: achieving best value in public‐sector organisations

Identifying the key areas for benchmarking towards the improvement of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) construction firms in developing countries: the case of Ghana

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to identify key areas for benchmarking (BM) towards the improvement of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) construction firms in developing countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed the use of the quantitative research method in the collection and analysis of primary data collected from field surveys using a piloted close-ended questionnaire created following a review of available literature on BM. Based on 63 solicited views of professionals with SMEs (quantity surveyors, project managers and architects) data collected were statistically analysed using a one-sample t-test.

Findings

The findings of the study indicate that the key areas for BM towards the improvement of SME construction firms in developing countries in order of relevance are “Financial Performance”, “Competitiveness”, “Customer Satisfaction”, “Technology Advancement”, “Communication Skills”, “Collaboration”, “Employee Satisfaction” and “Product orientation”.

Practical implications

The study has given more insight into the areas that need more attention for SMEs BM to achieve improvement. It can therefore be suggested firms that adapted identified areas will derive the benefits of BM. It is further opined that more BM education should be provided to various SMEs construction firms to facilitate an effective and efficient BM regime aiming at performance enhancement in project delivery.

Originality/value

This forging research attempts to identify the key areas for BM towards the improvement of SMEs construction firms in developing countries. Although there have been several efforts to create BM tools for the construction industry.

An Innovative Framework for Sustainable Development in Healthcare: The Human Rights Assessment

Healthcare providers are investing considerable resources for the development of quality management systems in hospitals. Contrary to these efforts, the number of tools that allow the evaluation of implementation efforts and the results of quality, security and sustainable development is quite limited. The purpose of the study is to develop a reference framework for quality and sustainable development in healthcare, Sanitary-Quality (San-Q) at the micro system level, which is compatible with applicable national and international standards in the field. The research method consisted of the study of literature, identification and analysis of good sustainability practices in healthcare, which allowed identification of the areas of the new San-Q framework: quality, economic, environmental, social, institutional and healthcare. These areas are incorporated into the core topics of social responsibility mentioned by ISO26000. A total of 57 indicators have been defined that make up the new reference framework. The evaluation format of the indicators is innovative through a couple of values: completion degree–significance. In the experimental part of the research, a pilot implementation of the San-Q framework at an emergency hospital was performed, the results recorded in terms of responsibility for human rights being presented. The conclusions of the study reveal the innovative aspects of the framework that facilitate the development of a sustainability strategy promoted through performance indicators, the results obtained after evaluation being useful in establishing a reference level of sustainability but also in developing sustainability policies.

Benchmarking—A Way of Finding Risk Factors in Business Performance

The purpose of this study was to emphasize that the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method is an important benchmarking tool which provides necessary information for improving business performance. To fulfil the abovementioned goal, we used a sample of 48 Slovak companies involved in the field of heat supply. As their position in the economic and social environment of the country is essential, considerable attention should be paid to improving their performance. In addition to the DEA method, we applied the Best Value Method (BVM). We found that DEA is a highly important benchmarking tool, as it provides benchmarks for units that have problems with performance and helps us to reveal risk performance factors. The DEA method also allows us to determine target values of indicators. The originality of this paper is in its comparison of the results of the BVM and the DEA methods.

[Improving the systematization of benchmarking in public health services]

Continuous management improvement should be an aspiration for all public sector organizations. External comparison or benchmarking identifies good practices in similar organizations. For public health services, it is not easy to obtain such indicators. The objectives of this paper are to describe the process of conducting a benchmarking exercise for a public health agency, and to share its results. For this purpose, agencies that may be compared were identified, and their websites were searched for annual reports or other documents with indicators of the activities or results of public health services. Limitations and contextual aspects of the indicators of the different organizations were identified, as well as ways to improve their comparability. Finally, a set of 19 indicators is proposed, as an initial core for quality management comparisons.

A benchmarking framework for understanding bus performance in the US

Purpose

This paper describes a benchmarking framework applied to medium-sized urban public bus agencies in the United States, which has overcome the challenges of data quality, comparability, and understanding.

Design/methodology/approach

The benchmarking methodology described in this paper is based on lessons learned through seven years of development of a fixed-route key performance indicator (KPI) system for the American Bus Benchmarking Group (ABBG). Founded in 2011, the ABBG is a group of public medium-sized urban bus agencies that compare performance and share best practices with peers throughout the United States. The methodology is adapted from the process used within international benchmarking groups facilitated by Imperial College and consists of four main elements: peer selection, KPI system development, processes to achieve high-quality data, and processes to understand relative performance and change.

Findings

The four main elements of the ABBG benchmarking methodology consist of 18 subelements, which when applied overcome three main benchmarking challenges: comparability, data quality, and understanding. While serving as examples for the methodology elements, the paper provides specific insights into service characteristics and performance among ABBG agencies.

Research limitations/implications

The benchmarking approach described in this paper requires time and commitment and thus is most suitably applied to a concise group of agencies.

Practical implications

This methodology provides transit agencies, authorities, and benchmarking practitioners a framework for effective benchmarking. It will lead to high-quality comparable data and a strong understanding of the performance context to serve as a basis for organizational changes, whether for policy, planning, operations, stakeholder communication, or program development.

Originality/value

The methodology, while consistent with recommendations from literature, is unique in its scale, in-depth validation and analysis, and holistic and multidimensional approach.

Measurement and benchmarking of workplace performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a process model of value-adding corporate real estate and facilities management and indicators that can be used to measure and benchmark workplace performance and the added value of workplace interventions for an organisation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper compares the performance measurement and benchmarking theory with current practice and data from different work environments. The paper builds on two books on adding value through buildings, facilities and services, both edited and co-authored by the authors of this paper. The books were based on literature reviews, interviews with practitioners, cross-border studies of performance measurement and benchmarking and in-depth analyses of various value parameters by experts from different countries. In addition, theory and empirical examples of benchmarking have been included.

Findings

The paper presents 12 value parameters that are seen as relevant in measuring and benchmarking of workplace performance: four people-oriented, four business processes-related, two economic and two social parameters. Because not all values can be easily expressed in monetary units, various other ways of measuring are presented that can help to monitor and to benchmark workplace performance. The 12 values and ways to measure can be used to support a more integrated business case approach that goes beyond “dollar-metrics” and spreadsheet-based decision-making. Both quantitative and qualitative performance indicators, including hard and soft factors, are needed to define the trade-off between the costs and benefits of interventions in corporate real estate, facilities and services and to cope with the interests and needs of different stakeholders.

Practical implications

To add value to an organisation, workplaces have to provide value for money by a positive trade-off between the benefits, i.e. support of the organisational objectives and the primary processes and the costs, time and risks connected with achieving these benefits. Widely used indicators to measure the costs are the investment costs, running costs and total cost of occupancy. These metrics are primarily connected to efficiency, i.e. to optimal use of the resources of a firm, but much less to effectiveness and benefits such as user satisfaction, productivity, health and well-being.

Originality/value

The paper links performance measurement and benchmarking to value-adding corporate real estate and facilities management and presents new ways to measure and benchmark the performance of buildings, facilities and services in connection to organisational performance.

How benchmarking motivates farmers to improve dairy calf management

Dairy calves often receive inadequate colostrum for successful transfer of passive immunity and inadequate milk to achieve their potential for growth and avoid hunger, but little is known about what motivates farmers to improve calf management around these concerns. Our aim was to assess if and how access to benchmarking reports, providing data on calf performance and peer comparison, would change the ways in which farmers think about calves and their management. During our study, 18 dairy farmers in the lower Fraser Valley (British Columbia, Canada) each received 2 benchmark reports that conveyed information on transfer of immunity and calf growth for their own calves and for other farms in the region. Farmers were interviewed before and after receiving their benchmarking reports to gain an understanding of how they perceived access to information in the reports. We conducted qualitative analysis to identify major themes. Respondents generally saw having access to these data and peer comparisons favorably, in part because the reports provided evidence of how their calves were performing. Benchmarking encouraged farmers to make changes in their calf management by identifying areas needing attention and promoting discussion about best practices. We conclude that some management problems can be addressed by providing farmers better access to data that they can use to judge their success and inform changes.

Benchmarking and improving mass transit systems in the United States based on best-in class practices

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to find ways to develop more efficient mass transit systems across the USA and, thus, make the best use of state/federal/municipal government funds and taxpayers’ monies. This paper conducts benchmarking studies. In doing so, this paper identifies the best-in class mass transit practices that every regional mass transit system can emulate.

Design/methodology/approach

The continuous underutilization of a mass transit system can increase public scrutiny concerning the increased investment in mass transit services. To defuse such scrutiny, this paper analyzes the past (in year 2011) performances of 515 mass transit agencies in the USA using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Also, to identify which factors influences those performances, the authors paired DEA scores for transit efficiency at the state level against a set of independent variables using a special form of regression analysis called Tobit regression.

Findings

The authors found that the greater population density of the service area, the greater number of riders can be served in a short amount of distance and time. Also, the authors discovered that the transportation mode of mass transit services could affect mass transit efficiency. On the other hand, the authors found no evidence indicating that the public ownership or private operation of transit systems could make any differences in the transit efficiency.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the few that assessed the performance of mass transit systems in comparison to their peers using a large-scale data and identify the leading causes of mass transit inefficiency. Thus, this paper helps transit authorities in handling juggling acts of protecting the conflicting interests of government policy makers against the general public and, then, make sensible future investment decisions.

Relative balanced measurement of trainee civil servants: a case example from Greece

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of relative balanced measurement as benchmarking tool for public training centers and public services.

Design/methodology/approach

Borrowing the concept of balanced scorecard we have modified the perspectives to reflect the special circumstances of Civil Service. Each perspective is assigned a number of key performance indicators, which are ranked in a Linker scale, in order to create rankings for each perspective. Then the rankings of each perspective are averaged in order to create a unique final ranking, which sets the performance frontier.

Findings

The real case example for Civil Servants Trainee's Work Unit (TWU) validates the relative balanced measurement conceptual framework.

Research limitations/implications

One of the limitations of this paper is that the conclusion is drawn from a single Training Center at Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance and a limited number of TWUs. A linked research should follow, with field researches for trainees and supervisors of the trainees (Heads of Trainee Work Units) in order to enrich and validate further the concept.

Practical implications

In the proposed concept the establishment of performance frontier, consisting of the best performing TWUs, could be used as a guide of inefficient TWU compare to the other in order to undertake their own improvements.

Originality/value

This paper provides a new concept for relative balance measurement of TWU of Public Services Training Centers. No such concept or method has been proposed and implemented to date.

The exclusion of indirect costs from efficiency benchmarking

Purpose

This study aims to evaluate the effects produced by a strategy aimed at neutralising one of the “disturbance factors” that may impede the focalisation on “real (in)efficiency” in relative efficiency assessments within the health‐care sector: the exclusion of indirect costs from these comparative analyses.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical analysis is based on the statistical elaboration of data from a sample group of hospital sub‐units within Italian health‐care trusts. The analysis isolates the effect on efficiency indicator variability (dependent variable) of excluding indirect costs (independent variable).

Findings

The analysis conducted has uncovered the likely manipulation of indirect costs to create the impression of having achieved approximately average levels of efficiency performance. The case analysed in this study shows how a defensive orientation in public organizations may arise even without the application of some form of compulsory benchmarking.

Practical implications

The results observed highlight how the exclusion of indirect costs – potentially allocated to attain cross‐subsidization among cost objects – may help to uncover actual cases of (in)efficiency and thus aid in identifying “true” best practices.

Originality/value

Literature has presented a variety of strategies aimed at neutralising some of the “disturbance factors” that impede the focalisation on “real (in)efficiency” in inter‐trust efficiency comparisons. However, until now no studies have supplied evidence of the efficacy of the strategies in question in isolating “real (in)efficiency”.