Factors of Success in Performance Information Procurement System / Performance Information Risk Management System

Abstract

The current economy has placed pressure on private and public organizations to become more efficient. Increasing requirements and expectations and decreasing resources are making it difficult for organizations to deliver their services on-time, on-budget, with high customer satisfaction. This has caused both professionals and academics to search for ways to minimize waste throughout the entire supply chain. Buyer/Supplier interaction has been one of the major areas of focus to improve the performance and efficiency of service delivery. Buyer/Supplier interaction includes such activities as: selection of suppliers, development of a contracts, and management of services. In 2008, the International Council for Building (CIB), a professional construction industry group performed (Egbu et al. 2008) a worldwide study identifying innovative construction methods that utilized performance metrics to increase project performance and efficiency. The study filtered through more than 15 million articles and reviewed more than 4,500 articles. In the end, the study identified only one system that had documentation showing it could consistently improve project performance. The system was a buyer/supplier interaction model called: Performance Information Procurement System / Performance Information Risk Management System (PIPS/PIRMS). Since 2008, the PIPS/PIRMS system has gained worldwide attention, due to its ability improve construction performance. The purpose of this research was to take an in-depth look into the PIPS/PIRMS system and identify factors that allow this model to improve performance of construction services that traditional methods do not use. Research was also performed to identify if the factors could be implemented into any Buyer/Supplier interaction model to improve service efficiency and performance. Through an in-depth literature research on buyer/supplier interaction models a comparison was made and eight factors were discovered that made the PIPS/PIRMS model unique from other buyer/supplier interaction models. Practitioners were surveyed to validate the uniqueness of the eight factors and predict the potential impact the factors could have on the performance and efficiency of delivered services. The final stage of the research involved conducting case study research with five clients implementing the eight factors on thirty-one different services, ranging from dining services to mental health services. The research results discovered the factors were able to decrease cost, increase value, and improve customer satisfaction of the services. The research indicated that improving performance and efficiency was a resource alignment issue rather than a technical issue.