Steve Martin
While many organizations embrace business improvement many do so in an insular way in so much that they fail to capitalise on innovation from outside the confines of their own business focusing merely on internal activities such as reducing non-conformities in their products or reducing lead-times.
For many organizations benchmarking provides an opportunity to engage their peers within the market and review and assess processes and procedures and facilitate the incorporation of best practice.
So what is Benchmarking? Benchmarking is a process that enables measuring the attributes of a process or product and facilitates comparison with peers or stakeholders. For example you might measure the output of how many widgets are produced by the day and night shift of a factory - or by how many widgets are produced by your organization and another organization operating in the same marketplace.
So how do you implement a benchmarking initiative - luckily the framework is fairly straightforward - benchmarking consists of a number of steps which are easily repeatable.
1. Identify the process or product being benchmarked
2. Identify the other organization(s) that will take part in the benchmarking activity - this should be a peer that has indicated better performance than your organization
3. Review and Measure the activity
4. Implement changes to improve your processes and align with results from peer.
5. Implement regular cycles of review
Benchmarking does require resources to carry it out effectively as well as peers that are willing to collaborate. One of the key steps is ensuring that the process being measured is done so effectively and with sufficient data to draw accurate conclusions - failure to do so could result in incorrect results.
Many organizations make the mistake of carrying out benchmarking but fail to deploy steps 4 & 5. The main benefit to be achieved is the facilitation of best practice into the measuring organization it is not just identifying areas for improvement it is the deployment of the improvements also.
Benchmarking represents a simple but effective method of engaging your peer group in your business improvement activity and is a key tool in maintaining competitiveness.
The author runs the blog Hampreston.com which provides information and resources on bus
Whats On My YouTube Today?
Fun Balloon Animals
Here Are A Few Items From Amazon You Might Be Interested In.
 Rare Bird Alert List Price: Sale Price: $10.38 You save: $4.60 (31%)  Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days  |
 The Crow: New Songs for the Five String Banjo List Price: Sale Price: $6.35 You save: $6.63 (51%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Wild & Crazy Guy List Price: Sale Price: $2.84 You save: $2.14 (43%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Let's Get Small List Price: Sale Price: $2.69 You save: $3.29 (55%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Comedy Is Not Pretty! List Price: Sale Price: $2.69 You save: $3.29 (55%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Rare Bird Alert List Price: Sale Price: $13.10 You save: $5.88 (31%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Let's Get Small List Price: Sale Price: $9.89 You save: $0.09 (1%) Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 Wild & Crazy Guy Sale Price: $22.00 Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
 The Crow New Songs for the 5-String Banjo Sale Price: $29.99 Eligible for free shipping!Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
Items recently purchased on this site:
Thanks for visiting!
Tags: steve martin banjo, steve martin king tut, funny, comedy, steve martini