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SUMMARY
This presentation will discuss best practices and benchmarking and how to get started with your own improvement effort. It will review definitions used by APQC members and explain why, how, and when to use benchmarking and best practices. Finally, this presentation will provide information on some of the tools and methodologies available.
KEY WORDS
benchmarking, best practices, secondary research
INTRODUCTION
Founded in 1977 by Dr. Jack Grayson, the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has evolved over the past 23 years into a membership-based, nonprofit organization providing information on best practices and quality. Our mission is to work with people in organizations around the world to improve productivity and quality by the following:
1. Discovering, researching, and understanding emerging and effective methods of improvement.
2. Broadly disseminating our findings through education, advisory, and information services.
3. Connecting individuals with one another and with the knowledge and tools they need to improve.
Over the years, we have been involved with the White House Conference on Productivity, administration of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and white collar measurement.
In 1992 APQC and 86 companies, from both the public and private sector, joined to create the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse to bring people together to provide tools, information, and support to maximize their potential with benchmarking and best practices. Here's a summary of what our members have learned about implementing benchmarking and best practices into their organizations.
WHAT ARE BEST PRACTICES?
Benchmarking helps a business focus on how to improve a process by exploiting best practices, not best performances. A best practice may not be the same for every organization because each has its own culture, technology, and resources. Best practices are those that have produced superior results. They actually drive best performance; therefore, it is the best practice that should be adapted to fit your organization. If an organization studies only best performance, it will miss learning important strategic, operational, and financial information that could improve the process even more.
APQC defines benchmarking as the process of identifying, understanding, and, wherever possible, adapting the best practices or techniques used by other organizations that may help your own organization to improve its performance. In today's fast-paced world of business, it is essential to continuously improve...