模糊层次分析法和平衡计分卡方法在台湾制造业IT部门绩效评价中的应用

1、A fuzzy AHP and BSC approach for evaluating performance of IT department in the manufacturing industry in Taiwan 来源：A.H.I. Lee et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 34 (2008) 96107 AbstractIn this ever-changing world, information technology (IT) is a must for the survival of a company, and the f

2、unctions of IT department is becoming increasingly important. The assessment of IT department is critical to understand how the department contributes to organizational and strategic goals. Because IT department performs many tasks that cannot simply be measured by monetary units, evaluation methods

3、 that solely rely on financial measures are not adequate. The objective of this study is to construct an approach based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and balanced scorecard (BSC) for evaluating an IT department in the manufacturing industry in Taiwan. The BSC concept is applied to d

4、efine the hierarchy with four major perspectives (i.e. financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth), and performance indicators are selected for each perspective. A fuzzy AHP (FAHP) approach is then proposed in order to tolerate vagueness and ambiguity of information. A F

5、AHP information system is finally constructed to facilitate the solving process. The results provide guidance to IT departments in the manufacturing industry in Taiwan regarding strategies for improving department performance. The constructed information system is suggested to be a good tool for sol

6、ving other multiple-criteria decision-making problems.1. IntroductionInformation technology (IT) involves computers, software and services, but good IT must synthesize these elements to achieve the goal of an organization. As a demand to collect, process, store, and disseminate information grows, th

7、e functions of IT department is becoming increasingly important. Although businesses invest huge amount of intellectual and financial capital in a range of communication and information technologies and services, the results of some surveys revealed that some companies have started to freeze IT budg

8、ets because there are insufficient evidence of a return from the investments and IT applications seem to be simply a black hole (Martinsons, Davison, & Tse, 1999). The reason behind is that it is difficult for managers to demonstrate tangible returns on the resources expended to plan, develop, i

9、mplement and operate computer-based information system (IS). Some frequently asked questions by the organizations are whether the investment in IT/IS is really worthwhile, whether the implemented IT application is a success, and whether the IT department functions productively. The measurement of th

10、e value of IT and the evaluation of IS performance, thus, become of great importance to managers. Many methods and techniques have been suggested over the years to evaluate the investments in IT/IS or the performance of IT departments. However, well-known financial measures such as return on investm

11、ent (ROI), internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV) and payback period have been demonstrated to be inadequate (Abran & Buglione, 2003). In the assessment of IT/IS investments or departments, it is critical to understand how IT/IS contribute to organizational and strategic goals, a

12、nd Many methods and techniques have been suggested over the years to evaluate the investments in IT/IS or the performance of IT departments. and evaluation methods that rely on financial measures alone are not suitable for IT applications. The balanced scorecard (BSC), a performance measurement fram

13、ework that provides an integrated look at the business performance of a company by a set of both financial and non-financial measures, seems to be a good solution. However, conventional BSC does not consolidate these performance measures, and an incorporation of BSC and analytic hierarchy process (A

14、HP) is an improvement. Since fuzziness and vagueness are common characteristics in many decision-making problems, a fuzzy AHP (FAHP) and BSC method should be able to tolerate vagueness or ambiguity, and therefore, is proposed in this research. 2. The balanced scorecard (BSC) and the analytic hierarc

15、hy process (AHP)Focusing exclusively on traditional financial accounting measures, such as return on investment and payback period, has implications, and has been criticized as the root cause for many problems in industries (Hafeez, Zhang, &Malak, 2002). As managers stress on short-term financia

16、l performance metrics, they have a tendency to trade off actions, such as new product development, process improvements, human resource development, information technology and customer and market development that can bring in long-term benefits, for current profitability, and this limits the investm

17、ents with future growth opportunities (Banker, Chang, Janakiraman, & Konstans, 2004). Such actions of managers are a consequence of poorly designed performance measurement systems that only focus on short-term financial performance. In the attempt to solve the problem by supplementing financial

18、measures with additional measures that can help evaluate the longterm performance of a firm, Kaplan and Norton introduced the BSC, a performance measurement framework that provides an integrated look at the business performance of a company by a set of measures, which includes both financial and non

19、-financial metrics (Kaplan & Norton, 1992; Kaplan & Norton, 1993; Kaplan & Norton, 1996a). The name of BSC is with the intent to keep score of a set of measures that maintain a balance between short- and long-term objectives, between financial and non-financial measures, between lagging

20、and leading indicators, and between internal and external performance perspectives (Kaplan & Norton, 1996b). Of the BSCs four performance perspectives, one is a traditional financial performance group of items, and the other three involve non-financial performance measurement indexes: customer,

21、internal business process, and learning and growth. The four perspectives are explained briefly as follows (Kaplan & Norton, 1996b):The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was first introduced by Saaty in 1971 to solve the scarce resources allocation and planning needs for the military (Saaty, 1980

22、). Since its introduction, the AHP has become one of the most widely used multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, and has been used to solve unstructured problems in different areas of human needs and interests, such as political, economic, social and management sciences. The procedures of

23、 the AHP involve six essential steps (Cheng, 1999; Chi & Kuo, 2001; Kang & Lee, 2006; Lee, Kang, & Wang, 2006; Murtaza, 2003; Zahedi, 1986):1. Define the unstructured problem and state clearly the objectives and outcomes.2. Decompose the complex problem into a hierarchical structure with

24、 decision elements (criteria, detailed criteria and alternatives).3. Employ pairwise comparisons among decision elements and form comparison matrices.4. Use the eigenvalue method to estimate the relative weights of the decision elements.5. Check the consistency property of matrices to ensure that th

25、e judgments of decision makers are consistent.6. Aggregate the relative weights of decision elements to obtain an overall rating for the alternatives.3. ConclusionsThis paper proposes an approach based on the FAHP and BSC for evaluating the performance of IT department in the manufacturing industry

26、in Taiwan. The analytic hierarchy is structured by the four major perspectives of the BSC including financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, followed by performance indicators. Because human decision-making process usually contains fuzziness and vagueness, the FAHP is

27、 adopted to solve the problem. A well-organized FAHP information system is constructed to facilitate the solving process. The results show that customer (0.378) and internal business process (0.299) have higher weightings. This indicates that providing services to users and promoting internal busine

28、ss process improvement should be stressed by ITdepartments. For the performance indicators, accuracy and timeliness of information (0.165), internal satisfaction (0.098) and average capacity and stability of the system (0.095) are the most important factors to be focused on. Some distinguished contr

29、ibutions of this research are as follows: 1. This research adopts the concept of the BSC to develop a performance evaluation structure for IT department in the manufacturing industry. Based on literature review and interview with experts in IT field, we finalize with fourteen most important performa

30、nce indicators for IT departments. These indicators can be a reference for IT departments in performance evaluation.2. This research bases on the fuzzy set theory and the AHP to propose a systematic performance evaluation model to provide guidance to IT department managers regarding performance eval

31、uation and strategies for improving department performance.3. A FAHP IS is constructed to assist the calculation of appropriate weightings for performance evaluation in IT department. An IT department can adopt this IS for routine performance evaluation of the department. On top of that, this IS is

32、very user-friendly and can also be used for solving general MCDM problems with fuzzy nature in real practice and in research. Coding knowledge is not required for using this IS. The user only needs some basic knowledge of conventional AHP to construct the hierarchy and input the questionnaire, and t

33、he results can be obtained by clicking the icons. On the other hand, the IS can be easily altered by modifying the logic behind to adopt different FAHP modelsfor research purposes.模糊层次分析法和平衡计分卡方法在台湾制造业IT部门绩效评价中的应用摘要： 在这个不断变化的世界，信息技术（IT）是一个必须为一个公司的生存，。 IT部门的作用变得越来越重要了，评价IT部门的绩效有助于了解该部门对组织的和战略目标的贡献度。由

34、于IT部门执行大量不能简单地用货币单位衡量的任务，完全依靠财务指标来进行绩效评价是不够的。本文研究的目的是建立以模糊层次分析法和平衡记分卡为基础的绩效评价方法来评估台湾IT制造业部门。平衡计分卡的概念应用于界定四个主要的观点（即财务，客户，内部业务流程，学习与成长），且从每个角度选择相应的绩效评价。然后提出了模糊层次分析法以容忍信息的模糊性。模糊层次分析法的模型建成后用以方便求解过程。研究结果为提高台湾制造业的IT部门的绩效提供战略指导指导，在台湾IT部门关于提高部门的工作表现在制造业的战略。所构建的信息系统也为解决其他多准则决策问题提供了好工具。一介绍：信息技术（IT）涉及计算机，软件和服务

35、，但良好的IT必须综合所有的这些因素来实现一个组织的目标。随着收集，处理，储存和传播信息需求的增长，IT部门正变得越来越重要。虽然企业在通讯和信息技术与服务领域投入了大量的人力资本和财务资本，但是一些调查结果显示，有些公司已经开始冻结IT预算，因为数据表明大量的资本投入并未获得预期的回报，IT应用似乎只是一个黑洞（Martinsons，Davsion，1999）。背后的原因是，它让管理人员很难将用于计划，制定，执行和操作计算机为基础的信息系统（IS）的资源形成切实有形的回报。各组织的一些常见的问题是，是否在IT / IS是真正有价值的投资，它的执行应用是否是成功的，以及IT部门的工作是否是富有

36、成效的。因此对IT的价值的评估和对信息系统绩效的评估对管理人来说是非常重要的。近年来许多方法和技术已被提出来用以评估IT/IS投资的绩效或IT部门的表现。然而，诸如投资回报率（ROI），内部收益率（IRR）的，净现值（NPV）和投资回收期等众所周知的财务衡量指标已被证明是不够的（AbranBuglione，2003）。在评价IT / IS的投资绩效或部门时，关键是要理解它是如何有助于帮助组织实现战略目标的。单靠财政措施评价方法不适用于IT的应用。平衡计分卡（BSC），绩效衡量框架，它通过一系列财务指标和非财务指标为公司经营业绩提供了一套综合的绩效衡量框架，似乎是一个很好的解决方案。然而，传统的

37、平衡计分卡并不巩固这些性能指标，而将平衡记分卡和层次分析法（AHP）结合起来则是一个巨大的提升。由于模糊性是许多决策问题的共同特色，模糊层次分析法和提出。二平衡计分卡和模糊性层次分析法着眼于传统的财务会计措施，如对投资回报率和投资回收期，对企业管理造成影响，并被作为造成企业问题的根源而被批判。（Hafeez, Zhang, &Malak, 2002）。虽管理者强调短期财务绩效指标，他们有一种权衡行动的倾向，不倾向新产品开发，工艺改进，人力资源开发，信息技术以及客户和市场的发展等这些可以带来长远利益的方面，而考虑当前的盈利能力，这限制了未来增长的投资机会（Banker, Chang, J

38、anakiraman, & Konstans, 2004）。管理者的这种行为是一种绩效评价体系设计不当，只注重短期财务绩效的结果。为了解决这个问题，可以在财政措施之外补充增加一些其他衡量标准，可以帮助企业评估长期绩效。Kaplan和Norton提出的平衡计分卡绩效衡量框架，它从公司的整天经营绩效考虑，提供了一整套的措施，其中包括财务及非财务指标（Kaplan & Norton, 1992; Kaplan & Norton, 1993; Kaplan & Norton, 1996）。平衡记分以衡量指标与其量度做为语言，把组织的使命和策略转变为一套前后连贯的系统绩效评核量度，把复杂而笼统的概念转化为精确的目标，藉以寻求财务与非财务的衡量之间、短期与长期的目标之间、落后的与领先的指标之间，以及外部与内部绩效之间的平衡。''（K