The Construction Users Roundtable

web-based training session summary

CURT web-based training is designed to provide an understanding of critical work processes. Visit the web-based training page to view a list of the training sessions currently scheduled.

key performance indicators

CURT owners strive for continuous improvement in their construction processes and results. Construction measures provide the means for monitoring and tracking critical in-process and results measures. The objective of this user practice is to define those measures and document measurements that CURT owners have identified as key performance indicators.

What gets measured, gets improved

Measures draw focus and attention to specific work processes and results. This focus and the resulting efforts to change cause these work processes to be improved and results to get better.

CURT owners rely on construction measures at both micro and macro levels to guide their decision making and managerial focus.

Micro-measures are measures at the individual project level that compare actual project results with expected results as defined in specific project goals and objectives.

Macro-measures, often referred to as benchmarking, compare and analyze results on a broader scale. Benchmarking can be used to compare results at project, site, regional, and global levels. Benchmarking can be both internal, within the corporate entity, and external, outside the corporation. Benchmarking is often expedited by industry associations such as the Construction Industry Institute (CII) or Construction Users Roundtable (CURT), or by for-profit benchmarking companies such as Independent Project Analysis (IPA).

Often, micro-measures are aggregated for site, region, and corporate entities and used for benchmarking at a higher level. For example, the OSHA Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) for individual projects at one manufacturing site can be aggregated and compared to the RIR at other U.S. sites. It could be further accumulated for a business area and compared to other U.S. business areas within the corporation, or totaled corporately and compared to other U.S. businesses and to U.S. averages kept by the federal government.

In addition, there are two general types of construction measures:

  • Results measures, which track outcomes after the fact.
  • In-process measures, which track leading indicators and anticipate potential problems before they happen.

CURT owners recognize the value of continuous improvement and use construction measures to focus their managerial attention on opportunities where improvement will pay the greatest dividend. Most CURT owner members have a corporate policy that requires individual projects to track and report selected construction measures. CURT owner members also aggregate and analyze these measures by site, region, and product area, as well as corporately.

Owners who proactively establish a quality improvement cycle by standardizing work processes and corresponding measures of effectiveness, experience better project outcomes. Improved project results are driven by continuously improving systems and organizational knowledge and understanding. Measures are a critical tool used to drive this process.

Center for Workforce Development


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