Guidance rules for deriving indicators for process and chain management at NSIs

At National Statistical Institutes, increased re-use of data and increased use of different data sources within statistical production lines leads to increased complexity. Moreover, different production lines become interconnected resulting in networks or chains. With increasing complexity, process management can be used to support tactical and operational decisions by production staff on the primary production process. Use of quality indicators is one of the well-known instruments within process management. It gives production staff insight into whether the primary production process meets the output quality requirements of users and the process quality requirements of the NSI. The present paper describes guidance rules in the form of a stepwise approach to determine which indicators will be helpful within the production process, and at which location, including the corresponding actions, given the requirements of users and the environment (NSI). In addition, a first set of standard indicator types for process management is given. At the end of the paper, the guidance rules are applied to (a chain of) production lines at two statistical institutes.