TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter will show how benchmarking measures an organization s products, services and processes to establish targets, priorities and improvements, leading in turn to competitive advantage and/or cost reductions.
The four basic types of benchmarking are: internal, competitive, functional and generic, although the evolution of benchmarking in an organization is likely to progress through focus on continuous improvement.
Benchmarking is presented as an efficient way to promote effective change, by learning from the successful experiences of others and putting that learning to good effect.
A strategy for the execution of benchmarking, with five main stages of plan, analyse, develop, improve and review, is given.
Product, service and process improvements can take place only in relation to established standards, with the improvements then being incorporated into the new standards. Benchmarking, one of the most transferable aspects of Rank Xerox s approach to total quality management, thought to have originated in Japan, measures an organization s operations, products and services against those of its competitors and others in a ruthless fashion. It is a means by which targets, priorities and operations can be established that will lead to competitive advantage.
The concept is based on the ancient Japanese quotation: If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. (Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 500BC). In Japanese, the word dantoso means striving for the best of the best.
The word benchmark is a reference...
