Improving end to end delivery of land administration business processes through performance measurement and comparison.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

The delivery of land administration (LA) systems particularly in urban areas underpins housing, industry and infrastructure development as well as the smooth operation of land and credit markets. However, fragmentation of LA activities across several autonomous organizations generally impairs end to end business processes flow and delivery. To facilitate improved service of LA systems we suggest the end to end measurement and monitoring of their business processes across organizational boundaries. This study proposes a performance measurement system that can facilitate end to end measurement and comparison of cross organizational business processes (CBPs) in LA. The research, which is structured in 2 parts, is based on a multi site study of LA CBPs in 6 urban municipalities across Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. First, a measurement instrument (scorecard) built on six key CBP performance measurement areas of quality and technological innovation (enablers of results), cost and time (measures of results) and customer satisfaction and society (measures of external success (or impact), is presented. To facilitate measurement across organizational boundaries, the proposed dimensions were embedded onto a multi level structural model that link process activities to sub processes and CBPs. For 5 of the 6 municipalities, a conventional case of subdivision of privately owned land within an established township was used to develop CBP descriptions and process models for each municipality. A comparison of CBP and sub process similarities between municipalities was then done using the similarity scenario degree. Our results showed similarities of over 60% for most CBPs while mixed values were obtained for sub processes. The similarity results were further used as a base for the construction of a business process reference model. The second part of the research tested the applicability of quality and time dimensions. Using the survey examination and approval and deeds examination and approval sub processes, the quality of submitted work was measured using performance indicators of process yield and rejection rates at 2 survey examination and 3 deeds registration sites. Our results showed that 80% and 60% of survey records submitted at both survey examination sites were rejected and returned backwards for corrections due to quality deficits. Based on our results, we conducted a root cause analysis at one of the survey examination sites to identify major contributors to lower process yield. In addition, we suggested numerous technological innovations to improve quality. Using the same sites, we then went on to measure and compare cycle times for cadastral survey examination and approval considering quality. Our results showed that 70% and 52% of survey records with good quality had approval times of 20 days or less for the first and second sites, respectively while only 32% and 18% of records with poor quality (for same sites) were approved within 60 days. Furthermore, shorter cycle times appeared to indicate lower process costs. After the separate analysis of the quality and time measurements, a global performance index that aggregates individual measures into a composite value was presented. Overall, the study has shown the potential of end to end CBP performance measurement in improving delivery and service of land administration in a holistic manner. The results are important for initiatives directed at integration and improvement of land administration operations.