Abstract:
This thesis reports on the development of a performance improvement framework that
formally represents causal relationships between performance measures, factors of
performance, improvement actions and the overall strategy of a business.
The measurement of business performance has received significant attention from both
the academic and business worlds. Literature suggests the benefits of implementing
balanced performance measurement. However, practitioners in the field of performance
measurement do not seem to deliver the significant results anticipated by the research
community.
The research reported in this thesis delivers a performance improvement framework that
allows practitioners to integrate the operations knowledge in an organisation with a
formal performance measurement system, in the form of causal relationships in
improvement actions. This gives an improvement focus to measurement and at the same
time ensures that improvement actions are aligned to the overall strategy of the
organisation.
The development of the framework was based on methodological theory development
and empirical case studies. The process to apply the framework and a set of web-based
tools to support its implementation were also built. These were tested in a process
industry environment.
The research contributes to knowledge by extending the concept of performance
indicators to incorporate factors that affect them, the potential improvement actions,
their constraints and their relationships. For organisations that have established
performance measurement systems and are working with a performance measurement
culture, use of this framework allows them to systematically evaluate actions for
continuous improvement.
