Achieving High Performance in the Construction Industry: the Case of BAM DLP the Netherlands

The construction industry is a significant contributor to the economic development and performance of many countries. At the same time, this industry has long suffered from low productivity, poor project outcomes and disappointing results. The construction industry is therefore in need of a quality upgrade of construction companies so they will be able to achieve better organisational results. Based on a literature review into holistic evaluation and improvement techniques suitable for a systematic appraisal of the quality of construction companies and the subsequent improvement of this quality, the high performance organisation (HPO) framework was chosen for this purpose. It was applied on a construction company in the Netherlands, to evaluate whether the HPO Framework can yield an accurate picture of the current status of this company (i.e. how far along it was towards becoming an HPO) and whether it provides useful indications for improvement. Both were the case, and in fact the outcomes of the application of the framework indicated a high degree of alignment with financial and non-financial results of the case company. As such, the HPO Framework can be designated as a potential useful technique for other construction organisations, both in the Netherlands and in other countries, to help them in their quest for achievement of higher performance.