Introduction

“Benchmarking” is something we do every day of our lives because benchmarking is about making comparisons. So, when we make choices or select a product, service (or anything else), we are doing so after comparing one product or service with another. It may be something rather trivial like the type of bread we chose for our sandwich for today’s lunch, or something major like the hospital we chose to perform a surgical procedure. So, we use comparisons to help us make good decision – that’s the purpose of benchmarking.

When carrying out benchmarking we, essentially, develop our criteria, look at (or sample) the options and then make a choice - that’s the processof benchmarking.

A “Benchmark” (as opposed to benchmarking) is a standard, something to aspire to and, again, something we use in our daily life: we may have a benchmark weight that we are dieting to achieve; a benchmark time we are attempting to match in our daily jog; a benchmark blood pressure or cholesterol level that we need to achieve to remain in good health.

It is very much the same at an organisational level where the process of “Benchmarking’ is described by David T Kearns Chairman, Xerox Corp (1982 – 1990) as: “the continuous process of measuring products, services and practices against the toughest competitors or those companies recognized as industry leaders;” the purpose of benchmarking at a business level is improvement. The “toughest competitors or recognised industry leaders” are known as “the Benchmarks.”

Objectives

By the end of the programme delegates will be able to:

• Define benchmarking terms.

• Describe the different types of benchmarking and explain the advantages and challenges of each type.

• List the phases together with the steps and activities in each phase.

• Describe the relationship of benchmarking to other quality tools and key business processes.

• Identify potential benchmarking opportunities.

Methods

It is our intention to give you an opportunity to understand the nature and practice of benchmarking. In order to do so we will present you with a range of learning experiences including presentations, case studies and exercises.

Duration:   2 days

Who it's for:

Directors, senior managers and business improvement professionals from all sectors who wish to learn world class approaches from others.

Course Content

Day 1

· Introductions, administration and objectives.

· Presentation: What is Benchmarking?

· Presentation: the advantages and challenges presented by each type of Benchmarking with recommendations for overcoming the challenges?

· Exercise: what is the scope of Benchmarking, i.e. what aspects of a business can be benchmarked?

· Review Exercise

· Exercise: identifying areas of waste (non-value-adding work) to identify Benchmarking opportunities.

· Review Exercise.

· Exercise: make the biggest list of measurable aspects of a business that may be usefully Benchmarked.

· Review Exercise.

· Case Study: an example of the items (metrics) one company attempted to Benchmark.

Day 2

· Presentation: using process mapping tools to identify Benchmarking opportunities.

· Exercise: constructing a value stream map to identify further process metrics.

· Review Exercise.

· Presentation: the problems presented by process variation.

· Exercise: constructing control charts to identify process performance measures.

· Review Exercise.

· Presentation: the benchmarking process.