Screening the Business Performance Indicators – Chemical Material Company as an Example

• Main Authors: Hsu - TsungChen, 陳旭宗
• Other Authors: Andrew S. Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/yhvt6y

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 工程管理碩士在職專班 === 103 === SUMMARY Today, corporations should consider and ensure sustainable operation. One of the means for sustaining a corporation is to establish a set of performance indicators to align the organizational objectives. This research screened the business performance indicators, reviewed the theories of performance indicators, balanced scorecards (BSC), ISO management systems, key success factors, and problem-solving techniques. Then it used a chemical material company as a case, combining these basic disciplines to build a performance framework and determine applicable indicators. This would collect the indicator figures of this company for the past three years, test the indicators, and then obtain the key performance indicators (KPI). After surveys of the case company and associated reference papers, sixty two indicators were initially proposed. Then, the initial indicators were screened to obtain applicable KPIs. Through the interview meetings with the company managers, and the questionnaires to other employees to choose 2 to 3 KPIs in each of the BSC four perspectives. Ultimately, 15 KPIs were determined after practical testing and scrutinization. INTRODUCTION The goal of a corporation is to make a profit. A company’s sustainable operation must balance between external impact and internal adjustment. These adjustments are to set approaching perspectives, define strategy, and meet targets (Chang 2011). Building the performance measurement will help a company better understand its growth, profitability, competiveness. In this study, the company strategy was set up in four strategic perspectives of BSC (Kaplan and Norton 2000), the performance issues were derived from the process flow review of the management system (ISO 9001:2008; ISO 14001:2004; OHSAS 18001:2007), key success factors (Chen 2012) and problem-solving techniques (CPC 2010), then the performance framework and initial indicators were established. In addition, the figures of the indicators were collected and the trends with these indicators in past three years were analyzed. This allowed the screening of initial indicators into the KPIs of company. MATERIALS AND METHOD BSC is the most popular performance measurement tool of many corporations around the world (Bain and Company 2013). There are four perspectives of BSC; finance, customer, internal business process, and leaning ＆ growth. ISO management systems are effective for the engagement of management within the company and many companies have certified their management system to raise their performance (ISO 2013). Key success factors and problem-solving abilities are important for a company to position its strength (Lin 2010; Yang 2006). In this research, the performance terms were defined as quality assurance, risk management, profit, and efficiency. A performance framework was built, and 62 initial indicators were proposed for the specific terms after reviews of the case company’s relevant documents and reference papers. The 62 indicators were vetted through the top managers’ interviews to confirm the strategic alignment and then provide the questionnaires to other employees to screen the indicators into 2 or 3 KPIs in the four perspectives. These are basic testing principles of the indicators allowing for the alignment of the strategy, effective measurement systems and the linkage to the value (Simons 2000). Ultimately, the company determined 15 KPIs after testing. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The framework was applied to the case company and actual performance of the operation was measured for the past three years. 21 indicators were then screened out after questionnaire survey. After further screening, 15 KPIs were finally determined. CONCLUSION It is fundamental to combine practical operation and basic theory to build the performance framework and indicators. This study obtained the KPIs through management review process and the figures of the KPIs provided feedback information of performance. The value of this study is that it established applicable performance framework and indicators, provided a study process flow to examine company’s performance systematically, and finally screened the indicators to determine the final set of KPIs.