Stephen P. Mulva

Factors Affecting Engineering Productivity

Engineering performance has a major impact on subsequent project phases, such as procurement and construction, and thus, has the potential to affect the overall project outcome. This study utilizes metrics and a database from the Construction Industry Institute (CII) benchmarking and metrics program to investigate relationships between factors thought to affect direct engineering labor productivity during detailed engineering. Collaborating with industry practitioners, quantitative assessments were analyzed with industry input through various CII committee meetings and industry forums. Significant correlations are found between engineering productivity and project size, project type, project priority, and phase involvement. Correlations are also found between degree of modularization, funded front-end planning effort, and quality management and engineering productivity. These findings extend and, in some cases, contradict previous research.

Assessing key factors impacting the performance and productivity of oil and gas projects in Alberta

Significant cost overruns and schedule delays on oil and gas projects in Alberta have been of great concern for many companies. The industry has indicated a need for public data to verify anecdotal...

Interaction effects of information technologies and best practices on construction project performance

AbstractBuilding from considerable empirical research in the general business literature, this paper quantitatively explores the view that the benefits of information technologies manifest themselves through improvement in work processes. In turn, better work processes lead to increased project performance. Using an overall sample of 133 projects (missing data make specific correlation sample sizes smaller) from the Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics database, this paper analyzes correlations between technology use and integration, best practices, and project performance measured with cost, schedule, and rework metrics. Data are also used to assess the complementary interaction between technology use, work processes as measured by best practices, and performance. The findings show that there are limited significant beneficial correlations between information technology use and performance, slightly more significant beneficial correlations between best practice use and performance, an...

Benchmarking Project Level Engineering Productivity

Abstract The benchmarking of engineering productivity can assist in the identification of inefficiencies and thus can be critical to cost control. Recognizing the importance of engineering productivity measurement, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) developed the Engineering Productivity Metric System (EPMS) composed of a series of hierarchical metrics with standard definitions suitable for measuring engineering productivity at various levels. While the EPMS can be used to assess engineering productivity at multiple levels within a discipline, it cannot produce an overall project level productivity measurement due to the underlying method of defining productivity. Previous studies have attempted to develop other metrics to assess engineering productivity at the project level; however, these methods did not create metrics suitable for benchmarking. To overcome these limitations, this study developed a standardization approach using “z-scores” to aggregate engineering productivity measurement from ac...

Performance Dashboard for a Pharmaceutical Project Benchmarking Program

AbstractPerformance measurement is essential to controlling and improving capital projects. Increasingly, industry sectors demand an industry-specific performance measurement system because their unique processes can result in significant differences in performance outcomes. This paper presents the development of a performance dashboard for a pharmaceutical project benchmarking program. The proposed approach adopts a relative comparison method and uses weighted key performance indicators (KPIs) to compare project performance. The dashboard generates an overall performance score both at the project level and at the company level, as shown in tabular and graphical formats. The dashboard provides flexibility for comparing the performance of projects even when the project types or KPIs are different. Although the study focuses on a performance dashboard for pharmaceutical industry projects, the dashboard development process described in this paper can be applied to other industry projects.

Quantification of front end planning input parameters in capital projects

Front end planning (FEP) is recognized by both academia and industry for its potential for improving project success. Despite wide acceptance of its value, the FEP process varies in its implementation throughout the construction industry and from one project to another. Diverse circumstances will require different human and financial resources for successful implementation. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) has captured the FEP implementation efforts of leading owners and contractors since 1996 through CII’s Benchmarking and Metrics (BM&M) program. This paper quantifies several parameters for successful FEP implementation effort in terms of cost, schedule and project management (PM) team size. The paper also examines selected parameters in light of several project characteristics. Analyses show that FEP implementation efforts differ depending on project characteristics such as industry type and project nature, amongst others. The quantitative summaries presented in this paper will help practitioners plan for appropriate levels of implementation and resource utilization during front end planning.

The 10-10 Performance Assessment Campaign: New Theories Regarding the Benchmarking of Capital Project Performance

This paper presents a recent initiative to revolutionize the benchmarking of capital projects. In the past 17 years, Construction Industry Institute (CII) has become a major source for the benchmarking of capital projects. While the value of benchmarking has been recognized by CII member companies, they find it difficult to implement it due to various issues. To address these issues, CII began working with industry experts to develop a new performance assessment system. This new system, known as the 10-10 Program, consists of input measures such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling and output measures such as cost and capacity. This paper describes the new benchmarking theories deployed in the creation of CII’s new benchmarking system. This paper explains what the new measures are and how they were chosen. The 10-10 Program is substantially different from previous attempts to benchmark project performance by pairing high value metrics with a minimum effort concerning data collection. The new system is capable of measuring absolute metrics for specific industry sectors. Importantly, users of CII’s 10-10 Program can assess their projects at the conclusion of each of five phases from planning through startup. As a result, project management teams will be able to take proactive actions to enhance project results. It is expected that the new system will promote enhanced performance assessment through external benchmarking.

Cost Normalization for Global Capital Projects Benchmarking

Globally, many large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies invest significant amounts of money to build manufacturing and laboratory facilities. One common concern amongst these companies is whether or not these facilities are efficient in their design and their use of human and financial resources. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) has worked with 12 of these pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies over the past seven years to benchmark the performance of their capital projects. In order to benchmark absolute cost performance (e.g., dollars per square foot), the projects’ costs need to be normalized to account for location, time and currency. However, no single cost index is available to meet this need of normalizing global facilities. As a result, CII and the companies developed a procedure using established cost indices to reliably compare the cost performance of capital projects from different companies. This paper also discusses the issues and challenges of normalizing the costs associated with pharmaceutical and biotechnology capital projects. This paper contributes to a better understanding of cost normalization amongst global capital projects.

Development of project level engineering productivity benchmarking index

Since 2002, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) has been working to develop a standardized Engineering Productivity Metric System (EPMS) for benchmarking purpose. In this system, engineering productivity is defined as a ratio of direct engineering work hours to the engineering outputs as measured by Issued for Construction (IFC) quantities. The EPMS consists of six major engineering disciplines with a number of underlying metrics. Engineering productivity can be accordingly benchmarked at any of these levels; however, there is a lack of project-level engineering productivity. The challenge is that IFC quantities are measured with different units and thus are difficult to roll up to the project level. To overcome this barrier, this study examines three approaches for aggregating engineering productivity metrics to the project level based on 112 heavy industrial projects. The selected project level engineering productivity measurement best summarizes the underlying engineering productivity metrics and provides a macro view of engineering performance. It allows owners and engineering organizations to benchmark engineering productivity at the project level. It also lays the foundation for future engineering productivity analysis and research.

A multi-perspective assessment method for measuring leading indicatiors in capital project benchmarking

This paper presents a new multi-perspective assessment method for measuring leading indicators deployed in the 10-10 Performance Assessment System that the Construction Industry Institute (CII) has recently launched. The CII 10-10 Performance Assessment System adopted a multi-perspective assessment approach for evaluating leading indicators that represent various management input measures throughout capital project delivery process. The leading indicators consist of 10 input measures, including four fundamental management functions such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling as well as major management practices such as design efficiency, human resources, quality, sustainability, supply chain, and safety. This paper provides the theoretical background for the method through extensive review of existing benchmarking theories. Then it describes the development process for the assessment method. After this, it presents how the method was deployed to evaluate the system’s 10 leading indicators. Finally, this paper discusses how to practically utilize the input measure scores acquired from the method for performance improvement. The assessment method in the system will help project management teams to diagnose their project’s performances and thus allow them to set up proactive strategies for the subsequent phases of the project.