Every capital-intensive constructions project goes through various challenges throughout their project life cycle. However, one crucial challenge is to understand and trace cost development over-time at planning phase. The research aim is threefold: firstly, to identify the critical factors of cost development in the planning phase. Secondly, to investigate empirically a dyadic relationship of cost deviation over time and quantitatively chart their developments. Thirdly, to analyze the construction cost data, discuss their cost developments and identify critical projects based on their actual financial impacts. The research considers 110 projects and analyze them using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The results showed higher cost escalation in the planning phase. The research identified critical factors for cost escalations at the planning phase. The average cost escalation of 110 projects (<5%) seems good, but some projects showed large cost deviations with lower financial impacts and vice versa.

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between multi-criteria performance measurement (MCPM) practice and business performance improvement using the raw data collected from 33 selected manufacturing companies. In addition, it proposes modified MCPM model as an effective approach to improve business performance of manufacturing companies.

Design/methodology/approach:Research paper. Primary and secondary data were collected using questionnaire survey, interview and observation of records. The methodology is to evaluate business performances of sampled manufacturing companies and the extent of utilization of crucial non-financial (lagging) and non-financial (leading) performance measures. The positive correlation between financial business performance and practice of MCPM is clearly shown using Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis.

Findings –This research paper indicates that companies which measure their performance using important financial and non-financial measures achieve better business performance. Even though certain companies are currently using non-financial measures, the researchers have learned that these financial measures were not integrated with each other, financial measures and strategic objectives.

Research limitations/implications: The limitation of this paper is that the number of surveyed companies is small to make generalization and they are found in a single country. Further researches which incorporate a large number of companies from various developing nations are suggested to minimize the limitation of this research.

Practical Implication: The paper shows that multi-dimensional performance measures with the inclusion of key leading indicator are essential to predict the future environment. But cost-accounting based financial measures are inadequate to do so. These are shown practically using Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis.

Originality/value: The significance of multi-dimensional performance measures for business improvement in developing countries has been an issue among researchers. The originality of the paper is evident in the proposal of MCPM model, considering the problems being faced by some manufacturing firms leading to low performance.

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Competing with successful products has become perplexing with several uncertainties and transmutes from time to time as customers' expectations are dynamic. That is why manufacturing firms exhaustively strive to look for a better competitive frontier using wellestablished and innovative product development (PD) processes. In this paper, we would like to answer three research questions: (i) What would be the effects of frontloading in PD? (ii) Can we improve our PD process endlessly? (iii) When is the critical time that the firm should take remedial action for improvements? As a contribution to the vast numbers of improvement methods in new product development (NPD), this paper investigates the effects of front-loading using set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) on cost and lead time. Models are developed and treated using a system dynamics (SD) approach. We assign a hypothetical upfront investment for SBCE and compare its effects on total cost and lead time of the development process. From the research, it is found that the total cost of PD is reduced almost by half-although the front loading is higher in order to encompass multiple design alternatives. The total product lead time is reduced by almost 20 %. The model reveals the critical time for improvement of the PD process. We use SD tool (e.g., STELLA) for simulation and visualization of the complex PD model, using SBCE as one of several strategies to frontload activities in the NPD process. Keywords Front-loading Á Set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) Á Innovation Á Lean product development (LPD) Á System dynamics (SD)

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing nation and benchmark with the world average. Design/methodology/approach -Primary and secondary data were collected from 34 selected companies. The primary data were obtained using a questionnaire survey to determine the quality management adoption level of each company using the European Business Excellence Model. Secondary data also collected in order to compute labor productivity of each organization and benchmark with international norms. Findings -In this research, labor productivity is measured by revenues per employee and total assets per employee and found that adopting quality management has strong relationships with revenue per employee unlike total asset per employee that is weakly related. Originality/value -Several authors suggest a positive relationship between adoption quality management principles and productivity in large organizations located in developed countries. However, this paper particularly focuses on labor productivity of labor-intensive companies.