There is an increased recognition that companies compete on a wide range of dimensions whose evaluation cannot be confned to narrow financial performance indicators The challenge is to develop non-fmancial indicators which capture the quality, service and flexibility issues of today’s customer oriented competitive strategies For service businesses the challenge is intensified; services are perishable so fluctuations in demand cannot be managed using the stock control policies common in manufacturing environments. Further, relatively junior personnel are ftequently the key points of contact with customers in the delivery of the service; so ensuring consistency of quality is difficult. This paper explores the influence of service process on performance measurement systems, by investigating the approaches adopted within two successful UK organisations, one a professional service (Arthur Andersen), the other a mass service (TNT). There are three common properties of the performance measurement systems and two areas of divergence. The common properties are clarty; there is clear communication of strategy to individuals within the organisation, consistency; the performance measures adopted support the corporate strategy, and range; both organisations measure performance over a range of financial and non-financial dimensions as advocated in the literature. Differences emerge in the mechanisms used to measure qualty and the apphoach to providing flexibilty, the how of performance measurement.

The article analyses the structural and technical aspects of Performance Measurement as part of New Public Management in the French context, at both central and local levels. The centralist influence is analysed through concrete features of the system. Some biases are highlighted in the control structure. The accounting system is described as focused on limited political purposes to the benefit of the Executive, and the recent organisational decentralisation revival in central state public services proves to be due to a strong top political support. An in-depth view of the impediments to performance measuxrement developments then shows that centralism is deeply rooted in cultural republican values, which shape the foundations of both the public service system and the political one, the former being influenced by the latter, through the concentration of managerial and political powers in the hands of a small elite clan. Finally, some emerging reflections are reported, which propose guidelines to reform the whole system.

The practices of target costing and kaizen costing have received considerable prominence as cost management methods which can support competitive strategies. However these techniques do require the support of internal cost information systems which provide both guidance and feedback on policies to effectively reduce resource consumption within the organisation. This paper explores the operation of just such a system-the kousuu reporting system. It involves the monitoring of resource use in the conversion cost area by profiling the various work times associated with component functions. This gives visibility to resource consumption, it supports the kaizen philosophy of beating previous actual performance by revealing time trends and facilitates cost management by integrating budgetary targets and ideas for improvement. As it is based on straightforward non-financial measures it provides a relatively unambiguous source of feedback which indicates the impact of previous decisions and guides future action on resource consumption and reduction.

Reengineering proposed by M. Hammer and J. Champy is noteworthy right now for the revolution of indirect work division in a company by introducing advanced IT (Information Technologies). However, it is not easy to apply directly to Japanese companies. Although dramatic improvements of business performance may be expected by the reinvention, it is considered a high risk endeavor.

In this case study, reengineering is regarded as a process innovation by information technology, and applied to practical pre-production processes for material processing,welding, machining and assembling in Industrial Machinery Manufacturer, Komatsu Ltd. A project team was established in Komatsu Ltd. and the conventional process flow has been analyzed by the deductive and inductive method. A moderate, middle up activity was important. The conventional duplicated processes were rearranged. And also, the new processes, which were possible for practical operation by using advanced information technology, could eliminate some conventional processes. For instance, cost tables as a database in computer network was required for more efficient cost estimation process. A customized CAD (Computer Aided Design) system was necessary for the management and improvement of drawing. As a result, drastic cost reduction especially for indirect work could be expected.