Measuring the Performance of a Strategic Asset Management Plan through a Balanced Scorecard
, Hugo D. N. Raposo 3, José Torres Farinha 3, Antonio J. Marques Cardoso 2, Svitlana Lyubchyk 1 and Sergiy Lyubchyk 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as a performance measurement tool for various aspects of company activities, has been widely used in reports prepared by management and consultants. A scientific work that has novelty and contributes significantly to theoretical and empirical development needs a breakthrough by bringing up a new model in the BSC or a combination with other analytical tools so that the performance appraisal process is better and different.
Author Response
On the attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
The paper present an interesting and emerging topic in the current context of the research area, especially on the current context of multiple overlapping crisis, such as the energy crisis, the inflationary crisis, or the COVID 19 pandemic crisis. The idea is really good on linking BSC with SAMP; however, there is insufficient the way addressing this possible link on a perspective of sustainability, circular economy and organizational resilience, reason why we would recommend some observations:
Introduction section
- Delete de Figure 1 from the manuscript; it does not have relevance for the research character of the paper;
- there is somehow an impression of missing up concepts such as sustainability, or circular economy; please try to make a separation between them;
- are there really relevant for the research paper all the references older than 10 years;
- on line 133, look for rephrasing the reference;
- Delete de Figure 3 from the manuscript; it does not have relevance for the scope of the paper, but rather some contextualization of the scope of the paper;
- Section 1.2 and 1.3. are not necessary to be delimited as individual sections (lines 156-179);
- In the introduction section, there is much discussed about the need for sustainable and circular-economy-based manufacturing premises; however, there is not clearly made the relation between the SAMPs and the expected contribution to the evolution of the manufacturing process redesign/continuous improvement;
Literature review
- There is too less discussion on the concept of asset management and why is it needed a monitoring system;
- The Figure 4 is related to the current conceptual research design as well?
- Some spelling errors identified (e.g.: line 224);
- Is it really needed Fig. 5? Do the authors have all the permits to transpose the graph in their manuscript?
- In line 267, why there is no year mentioned for the reference used? Even if we talk about working paper, the year of last accessing is a reliable and valuable information for understanding the version of the paper used in the manuscript;
- Are the references in lines 330-338 really relevant for the state-of-art of the balanced scorecard?
- Why Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3 are not a combination, leading to a single table, in order to provide a more comprehensive image of the relevance of the KPIs selected, from the perspective of the ISO related standard? Additionally, it is not clear why the research has resumed only to ISO related requirements, but not also to other metrics mentioned in the studies previously mentioned in the section of the literature review, and that address the problem of asset management;
- There is no description of the context of the research, or the theoretical conceptual framework pillars;
Methodology research
- Why there is no clear separation between Methodology Research and Literature review?
- Info related to Tables 1 to 4 would better fit on the methodology research section;
- Additionally, there should be written such a section where the methodology should be clearly described; what steps of the research are followed? What data is used? Explain the narrowing of the metrics used for empirical analysis? Which is the source of the data? How are ensured the validity and reliability of the data used for research? etc….
- For me the information in Table 5 is a black-box, as I do not understand how is calculated, for what purpose? Is there an analysis related only to one company, or more? Is there accounted for the sectorial characteristics or business models specifics…?
- There is missing a robust conceptual framework that highlights the link between BSC as a monitoring tool and SAMP as planning tool.
Discussion
- This section is extremely poorly addressed and should be reconsidered;
- Here should be provided the insights of the research; why is there needed SAMP? Which are premises? What about the role of: people, process, systems, governance, culture, strategy etc.? it is mentioned in lines 445-446 the need of aligning organizations to several principles, but it is not clear how in the case study of tis research the SAMP reflects this alignment;
- There is not emphasized the strengths and weaknesses of using BSC on SAMP process;
- There are not underlined the practical (economic) implications of such a model of monitoring;
- There is not clear the link between SDGs (related to sustainability) and the BSC model proposed, but rather only a link between ISO 55001 and the BSC model, which does not fit with the scope and the research questions of the research paper.
Conclusions
- the section should be rewritten in order to show the scope of the paper, the narrowing of the research scope, the context of research (such as reference to only one sector, or country etc.), the main procedure followed for the research, the basic pillars of the conceptual research framework, the summary of the results obtained, the theoretical and practical (economic) implications of the results, or the limitations of the research and further perspective of research.
Author Response
On the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Balanced Scorecard is a flexible framework for organizational analysis and strategy design. The original aspects and the opportunities to enhance it allow a broad utilization. The focus on sustainability is a popular selection in the field. The manuscript is a valuable effort; both the methodological development and the results are considerable. It could be questionable what factor should be included or missed, but I do not want to start this debate. The text mirrors the approach of the authors, and I can accept it.
I can recommend the publication after fixing some minor issues. It seems that the authors used reference manager software, but its automated solutions are sometimes scattered. Please, check the in-text references and manually adjust them to better readability. Figure 5 is difficult to read; please, try to save a better-quality image or redraw it.
Author Response
On the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The following comments and suggestions are addressed for future revisions of the article:
1. The background needs to reveal the relationship between SAMP and BSC. Then, like the state of the art of this study, there is a gap which is the novelty of this study.
2. Work-related needs to be mapped to get an overview of previous empirical studies and determine the position of this research.
3. Discussion of the results is more related to study findings with in-depth theoretical and empirical support for the entire debate.
4. The conclusion section should include limitations of the research and suggestions for future work.
5. References are adequate and up-to-date. One of the following sources can be considered as an additional reference.
· Mujahidin, E., Syamsuddin., Nurhayati, I., Hafidhuddin, D., Bahruddin, E., & Endri, E. (2021). Importance Performance Analysis Model for Implementation in National Education Standards (SNPs). Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 10(5), 114-128. https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2021-0127
Author Response
In the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for the revision of the paper made so far. However, bellow you can see my observations that still remain with the revised version of the paper.
Introduction section
- I still consider Figure 2 is not that relevant to be in the paper, as the objective of the paper related to asset management, not to energy consumption or nexus between different dimensions of energy management and economic growth or sustainable growth;
- I still consider the introduction of the paper does not draw-up clearly the context of research that should emphasize the relevance of the topic addressed, in the current literature; the link between strategic asset management and sustainable (green) growth of companies is partially addressed in this section; maybe more attention should be given to the information from Figure 1 and the Reduce; Reuse; Recycle; Recover; Redesign; and Remanufacture philosophy, but trying to narrow the content of the section only to the area of asset management; what the current context says about the need of asset management and what is the biggest issue on the current solutions of monitoring and control tools? Why is BSC tool expected to bring more insights to the practice? Is there a gap in the literature that does not cover the problem of measuring SAMP performance…? Or is there an issue with the actual solutions on this area…? Why are the strengths of this paper? Why should the reader go through it…? It is also essential to highlight if the research is limited only to maintenance area, as per ISO 55001, or the BSC designed in the paper is to be used in any area of activity, no matter the sector? This topic of asset management planning is linked to which od the SDGs and how…?
- I still consider section 1.2 and 1.3. are not necessary to be delimited as individual sections; maybe here you should reorganize the introduction section, in order to place here the content addressing the phrasing of the research questions;
Literature review
- There are plenty of papers about BSC, reason why older articles could be reconsidered to be taken out, if they are not reference along the time for the topic; see https://doi.org/10.1177/23197145211049625 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.03.005 , http://dx.doi.org/10.22441/oe.2021.v13.i1.012 , https://doi.org/10.22452/AJAP.vol13no1.4 ;
- Clarifications should be done on the text related to what ISO 55001 Asset Management is;
- I insist that Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4 to be combined, leading to a single table;
- Additionally, for me still remain the question why the research has resumed only to ISO related requirements, but not also to other alternative standards; for instance, why only ISO 55001 was considered, but nothing mentioned about ISO 55000 or ISO 55002, especially when building-up the conceptual framework of this research; what about the ISO standards that address the same issue of asset management planning, but with particularities for different sectors of activity? What about ISO 9001? Does this standard give also some indications on this asset management planning direction, especially knowing that this standard ask for recertification, which require robust control and monitoring tools, as a BSC model?
Methodology research
- Related to the observations addressing the Methodology of the paper, I see no significant revision of the paper; e.g.:
o A clear separation between Methodology Research and Literature review is still missing;
o The case study related to what data is used?
o Why only some metrics were used for empirical analysis (it is not a problem the narrowing to several KPIs, but try to explain the reason behind)?
o Which is the source of the data? Are we talking on the calculation about one company only, or…?
o How are ensured the validity and reliability of the data used for research? etc….
- I still sustain that for me the information in Table 5 is a black-box, as I do not understand how is calculated, for what purpose?
o If the analysis is made on a company, why there isn’t a short description of the company (not with names maybe), but at least to understand its business model, and the profile of maintenance activity etc.;
o Is there accounted for the sectorial characteristics or business models specifics…?
o I see no interpretation of these results; how was the objective translated into this table? Are there somehow targets defined against which we calculate the KPIs selected based on ISO 55001 requirements? If you could interpret the results from Table 5 according to the concept diagram from Figure 7, would be insightful;
Discussion
- Thank you for revising the discussion section; however, the economic implications of using this BSC tools for SAMP purpose are only partially addressed; also, is it possible to transform this tool into a digital control tool? Does the operational processes allow such digitalization? Is human factor proving enough knowledge on the asset management planning area or the digital standardized platforms/applications can help the organization to prevent negative effective of improper use of such BSC tool etc. ? So far, the practical implications of the BSC tool on the SAMP area do not sufficiently address the main pillar of discussion, respectively: people, process, systems, governance, culture, strategy etc.?
- There is not emphasized the strengths and weaknesses of using BSC on SAMP process;
Conclusions
- the section should be rewritten in order to show the scope of the paper, the narrowing of the research scope, the context of research (such as reference to only one sector, or country etc.), the main procedure followed for the research, the basic pillars of the conceptual research framework, the summary of the results obtained, the theoretical and practical (economic) implications of the results, or the limitations of the research and further perspective of research.
Author Response
In the attached file
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
I express my appreciation for the acceptable revision of the paper and according to expectations from the suggestions and comments addressed. Congratulations, your article is much more scientific than the initial submission of the manuscript.
Author Response
Thank You!
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
There still remain in my mind some small issues to be corrected in the final form of the paper. In understand your point of view that the BSC is used just as a tool for better SAMP monitoring. However, it is important for readers to understand how general is the model proposed for this unique water company in Portugal.
First, I would understand if thee is some confidentiality requirements, but make clearly in the paper this.
Second, the case study in the paper interprets the results not suficiently, in lines 450-457. Please try to make clear on the paper for these indicators, how you evaluate them as being acceptable performance, over performance etc.? Why you do not link those KPIs, when interpreting them, to the objectives and strategy of the company? That is why I would have considered essential a better description of the business model. If you want to propose with monitoring model of SAMP through BSC, you should describe the way they could use it. The purpose of he paper is not strictly academic, but also with practical insights. For instance, when reviewing the KPIs calculated, have evaluated the figures obtained against the industry specific ratios, such in case of ROI, or the PLTF? If possible, please try to extend the interpretation of Table 4, in order to give insights of how decision-makers could identify root-causes on low SAM performance. The example already presented employee training is relevant. But for instance, when taking about CSAT indicator, I do not understand which is the standard (threshold) that allows me to evaluate this as an underperformance. Also, the interpretation stops to the figure itself, but this indicator is rather related to customer satisfaction, which could mean poor product quality, of bad service delivery, caused by improper strategic asset management, for instance company's incapacity to align to changes to market demand.
Best regards,
Author Response
Dear Sir,
The results interpretation has been updated, a better approach of the company has bem made, the indicators used are generalist and the results should be evaluated according each sector, new adds on this have been introduced.
Thank You
