A performance measurement framework for R&D activitiesIncreasing transparency of R&D value contribution

Sammanfattning: To measure the performance of research and development organizations has long been a difficult task and still is partly due to the complex nature of its processes and activities, but also since the outcome in many cases can be seen first after many years. Also, the outcome is dependent on efforts from several other business functions within an organization. There has been a shift in how organizations view R&D, from being technology-push centered, where R&D had full responsibility of all innovations, to collaborating with innovation across functions within a company. Historically, R&D has been considered to be impossible to manage and control, but as the development has taken place R&D is now aligned with an organization’s business strategy. There is a vast amount of literature on performance measurement systems with focus on R&D to access, however, the focus of that research has been on evaluating performance of an entire R&D department or a specific project and not as much can be found on how to evaluate R&D related activities, which is what this thesis centers on. The research in this thesis has been done by conducting a case study at Sandvik Materials Technology’s R&D department in Sandviken, Sweden. Three case study objects have been studied within the case study and these objects are the OCTG project, non-destructive testing and hydraulic & instrumentation tubing. The case study consisted of interviews with employees at various functions within the company, an extensive literature review as well as a review of internal documentation. The result from the case study has been the design of a performance measurement  ramework and its application to the three case study objects, illustrating that it is possible to measure the performance of R&D related activities, thus, enabling a more transparent view of what value R&D contributes with. The framework is created in a way that allows for other organizations with similar settings as the one currently in place at Sandvik Materials Technology to utilize it. Implications from the findings have an impact both from an industrial and research perspective, but also from a sustainability perspective. The industrial implication is that a framework for evaluating and illustrating the performance of a R&D organization on an activity level has been designed. Considering the research aspects, this research contributes to the identified gap in the existing body of knowledge, providing additional knowledge on performance measurement systems on an activity level. From a sustainability perspective the framework enables monitoring and supervising of important processes, which could stimulate employees to undertake necessary actions, potentially leading to reduced negative impact on the environment since a lesser amount of resources and energy is consumed.