A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2001

To manage Research and Development (R&D) is one of the most difficult tasks because R&D is unique, creative, and unstructured process. Since now, no proper and effective system for managing R&D projects of Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF). This study is conducted in order to identify relevant and appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KP Is) and to measure the performance of RTAF's R&D projects. The balanced scorecard is an appropriate tool to identify KPis because it integrates four critical perspectives such as mission, customer, internal process, and learning and growth perspectives. To ensure the applicability of KPls, the validation is done by forty-two respondents from strategic and operational units. Then the completed sets of KPis with weight are systematically developed. Accordingly, eighteen projects in various phases are subject to survey by means of in-depth interviews and verifying the documents. The result shows that the performance of RTAF's R&D projects in various phases are unbalanced and need to be improved among four critical perspectives. Performance measurement system is proposed in order to improve the project performance by balancing among four critical perspectives, between short run and long run, and between intangible assets and tangible assets.