Managing Quality

Chapter 21. Benchmarking

R. Love and B. G. Dale

Introduction

From the late 1980s onwards there has been a growth of interest in the subject of benchmarking as part of the culture of continuous improvement. This has been triggered by the success of the improvement methods used by the Xerox Corporation and by the development of the self-assessment methods promoted by the MBNQA and EFQM models for business excellence. Benchmarking as it is known today originated in Rank Xerox. It is now well documented (e.g. Camp 1989) that when Rank Xerox started to evaluate its copying machines against the Japanese competition it was found that the Japanese companies were selling their machines for what it cost Rank Xerox to make them. It was assumed that the Japanese-produced machines were of poor quality, but this proved not to be the case. This exposure of the corporation's vulnerability highlighted the need for change. In simple terms, the aim of benchmarking is to identify practices that can be implemented and adopted to improve company performance.

The concept of benchmarking was popularized by the seminal work of Camp (1989), based on the experiences of Rank Xerox. In simple terms benchmarking is an opportunity to learn from the experience of others. It helps to develop an improvement mindset amongst staff, facilitates an understanding of best practices and processes, helps to develop a better understanding of processes, challenges existing practices within the business, assists in setting goals ...