Non-financial performance measurement in manufacturing companies

The contemporary manufacturing environment is characterised by increased worker responsibility coupled with the measurement and reporting of numerous aspects of performance. At shop-floor level much of this performance measurement and reporting is non-financial. This paper reports on a large scale, empirical investigation of the measurement practices in British factories at the beginning of the 21st century. Descriptive statistics are provided as well as a classification model of shop-floor non-financial measures. In addition, the relationships between operational measures and contingent firm-specific and external variables are identified. Various partial relationships are found, and ‘across the board’ high levels of shop-floor performance measurement are found to be associated with a severely competitive environment, an upward communication corporate ethos, and with the adoption of JIT or TQM/TPM.