Performance indicators to compare health service units in different districts of the UK were piloted in 1982, and since that time the use of indicators has grown to encompass higher education, rail services and local government, amongst many other sectors. It was recognised in the mid-1990s that such performance measures might help overcome some of the problems of the UK construction industry and this led to the launch of the Construction Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in 1999. The belief was that KPIs would become a tool to help companies to measure, assess, compare and hence improve their performance. This paper reports on a survey of the use of performance indicators in the UK construction industry, identifying the extent of their use and why and how the indicators are produced and the information processed. The survey results showed that a slim majority of construction companies do actually measure their performance using either indicators that are developed specifically for their companies 'in-house', the industry specific key performance indicators or a mixture of both. Although many companies produce this data at the project level, only a few of them produce company level KPIs and hence the majority are unable to compare themselves to other construction companies or to the industry as a whole. Despite this, many organisations are using performance indicators and are obviously gaining a valuable insight into their own internal practices as a result.
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