Combined use of key performance indicators and data envelopment analysis for the performance assessment of construction companies

Abstract

The traditional Construction Industry (CI) web benchmarking systems aredesigned to provide results based on key performance indicators, so a singlecompany performance measure is usually unavailable. This research aims tofulfil this gap by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a method forcomplementing the information provided by the traditional assessments basedon performance indicators. The Portuguese CI web benchmarking system,icBench, was used to demonstrate the advantages of integrating bothapproaches. The analysis included a sample of 20 Portuguese leadingcontractors. The assessment of contractors described in this study adopted twodifferent perspectives: organizational performance and operations performance.Two types of DEA models were used for each perspective: one allows factorweights to vary freely and the other includes weight restrictions. The resultsobtained show that DEA can be a useful technique to identify efficientcompanies and to provide performance improvement targets for the others.