Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard formulation process for setting up Engineering Design performance metrics

Abstract

The selection of effective metrics for monitoring business processes, specially t h e ones related to the Engineering Design Process, can be not only very time consuming, considering the number of activities that are usually fou nd in this process, but also can lead to the selection of metrics that measure a non-representative aspect of the process, or will not be considered by the decision makers in the course of action. To prevent this situation and save company's resources, it is necessary to identify the right set of metrics, that is, the ones that will influence the enterprise's strategy. One way to achieve this is to deploy a given strategy into aspects that can be easily u nd ersto od by tactical and operational staffs (where the major part of the Engineering Design activities happens). This paper presents the general view of a method for choosing appropriate metrics for the engineering design process and is focused on demonstrating the usefulness of the Balanced Scorecard formulation approach to accomplish both, the deployment and the election of the key pro cesses where the metrics selection will be performed. Two industrial case studies are presented where the proposed approach has been tested, with good results.

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