Measuring the performance of value management studies in construction

Value management (VM) has been reported to be useful in reducing costs while maintaining or even improving the performance of a project. However, many potential users in the construction industry are reluctant to use VM because of a lack of tools to assess VM studies. The overall aim of this research is to develop a framework which can measure the performance of VM studies effectively, rigorously, and continuously. The objectives of this research are (1) to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing performance measurement models; (2) to develop, validate, and refine a performance measurement framework for VM studies in construction; and (3) to implement the framework in a computer-aided toolkit. Research methods such as interviews, questionnaire surveys, case studies and focus group meetings are used in this research to achieve the objectives. A comprehensive literature review has been conducted on both VM and performance measurement. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing measurement frameworks are critically reviewed in the context of VM studies in construction, thereby accomplishing the first research objective. Thirteen factors which have a major impact on the performance of VM studies in construction are identified from the literature review. Based on these factors, a theoretical foundation for the measurement framework is established. A preliminary framework is developed to explain how the desired features could be achieved in measurement. The identification of the key performance indicators (KPIs) by a questionnaire survey is then presented. A detailed framework which consists of the measurement processes, data providers, weightings of KPIs and definitions of the scoring is then developed. In order to validate and refine the developed framework, case studies, focus group meetings and interviews have been conducted. A refined framework is then presented and the performance indexes are built. A computer-aided toolkit is developed to take advantage of the information technology (IT) in the measurement processes and the integration of the performance measurement framework into this toolkit is explained. A trial implementation of the system to measure the performance of VM studies is conducted to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of this computer-aided toolkit.