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Measuring Relative Productivity and Staffing Levels in a Federal Procurement Office
Author(s) -
Black Dennis E.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
international journal of purchasing and materials management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.75
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1745-493X
pISSN - 1055-6001
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-493x.1995.tb00208.x
Subject(s) - staffing , workload , procurement , productivity , operations management , index (typography) , work (physics) , operations research , business , computer science , economics , engineering , marketing , management , economic growth , mechanical engineering , world wide web , operating system
A number of attempts have been made to measure productivity and staffing needs within federal procurement offices. Previous attempts, however, have failed to adequately measure the relative (weighted) differences in both work tasks and staffing levels across offices examined. This research presents an analytical model for measuring the productivity across federal procurement offices by computing a workload index that weights the differences in work assignments and staff resources within each office examined. Through the systematic assignment of weights, the model, called the Workload Index Model, measures an office's relative productivity, given its relative staff resources. If certain assumptions can be made that generally apply across all federal procurement offices, then with the application of systematic weights, the relative productivity of an organization can be measured. The model therefore avoids the validity and reliability errors inherent in generally used unweighted performance indicators. The author tested the Workload Index Model by measuring the relative workload and staffing among ten decentralized research and development (R&D) contracting offices at the National Institutes of Health during the six‐year period of FY 1988‐1993. The results showed that, unlike previous attempts, the Workload Index Model produced systematic comparative analyses of relative productivity and staffing across the offices examined. Used with other performance indicators, the model represents a useful quantitative tool for federal, and perhaps private sector, procurement managers in developing productivity and staffing standards.