Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of measures, including for example water usage, CO
2
emissions, recy-
cled material content and workforce demographics.
Performance scorecards can be derived from the list of measures, as
shown in Figure 3.7. On the left side of the diagram are the key themes or
perspectives, ranging from Accountability to People. Each of these key
perspectives has between one and three strategic goals. Beneath each stra-
tegic goal are the measures used to assess performance on a scorecard.
Concluding remarks
Developing an understanding of a client's requirements is fundamental
to delivering a successful programme or project. This is the starting
point of the procurement of a construction supply chain. PSE therefore
begins by assessing these requirements and then quantifi es their relative
importance using a balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard sets out
specifi c areas of performance that can be thoroughly tested during pro-
curement to enable the selection of the best response from contractors
and suppliers. Their performance is then tested throughout delivery to
ensure that delivery is consistent with what was promised during the
tender process.
Procurement may be seen, by fi rms tendering for work, as costly and
often repetitive. It is also seen as adding cost to delivery. Even unsuc-
cessful bidders have to recoup their costs of tendering by imposing the
hidden cost of failed tender bids on other clients engaging the failed
bidder. However, public-sector procurement is required to be transpar-
ent, fair and equitable. Even private-sector clients need to be reassured
about what they can expect to achieve with their built environment
investment. The failure of a project or programme may be caused by
poor procurement, through focusing on misleading criteria, such as
selection driven by a lowest price, or not clearly establishing in the fi rst
place what was expected of the delivery team.
An unambiguous set of requirements that sets out the relative value
of each aspect of a programme allows the supply chain to make a com-
mercial decision on what price they decide to allocate to delivering each
requirement. The description of requirements also enables responding
contractors and suppliers to state their interpretation of that delivery
and its price. Measuring their delivery against their stated intent can be
used to enhance performance, engender innovation and achieve continu-
ous improvement across a programme.
