Best Practices for Benchmarking

Best Practices for Benchmarking

Managers of Maines Paper & Food Service were stumped. Their benchmarking data showed what appeared to be significant performance differences between two company locations. Each site was handling very similar work—in fact, they both were servicing the same client—but figures associated with cost and profitability were dramatically different.

"One unit appeared to be markedly underperforming," recalls William A. Mastrosimone, chief financial officer of the Conklin, NY, company. "We puzzled over it for quite some time."

The puzzle was solved when Mastrosimone and his colleagues uncovered a factor not considered in the benchmarking effort: the age of the two facilities. One had been operating for twenty years, the other for only three—and both units had quite a few staff who had joined the company when their location opened. The older facility had a significant share of twenty-year employees, whose pay "had hit the top of the grid," Mastrosimone says, while the newer location had only a handful of employees with more than a few years' employment. That skewed many unit costs, which took into account personnel expenses.

When the benchmarking effort was ... more



Best Practices & Benchmarking

A best practice is a business function, process, or system that is considered superior to all other known methods. A documented strategy and approach used by the most respected, competitive, and ... more



Best Practices for Small Business

Big business has benefited greatly from benchmarking best practices. Small business can reap even greater rewards. Learn how to effectively borrow outside ideas and strategies for your small business ... more


What is Benchmarking?


Benchmarking
1 Advantages of benchmarking
2 Collaborative benchmarking
3 Procedure
4 Cost of benchmarking
5 Technical benchmarking or Product Benchmarking
6 Types of Benchmarking



Global Benchmarking Network (GBN)


..