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Questions On Benchmarking

Decent Essays

1. Describe benchmarking and explain its role in quality management. Describe in detail how a company can derive benefit from benchmarking? What are some of the quality management tools commonly used in Benchmarking? (6 points)
Benchmarking is a process through which companies incorporate process modifications or standards to emulate the performance of a ‘benchmark’ company or practice. A ‘Benchmark’ is anything which has proved to be the best in terms of performance or quality. It can be a product, a service, a process, a practice or any other aspect. Benchmarking is usually undertaken by assessing an aspect with the best results and then integrating it into existing process to improve the performance and achieve best …show more content…

Improve Performance: Benchmarking helps to improve efficiency and quality of process and/or products. Improved process can lead to reduced production costs and in turn give maximized profits. Improved product quality can lead to increased revenue and hence increase profits. Improvement can be overall in operational efficiency as well as in product quality. Sometimes it can also be achieved in human resources through trainings and workshops for employee improvement.
2. Understand relative cost position: Benchmarking assists in determining the competitive pricing offered in the market by rival companies and how it can be achieved. It usually determines how the rivals can offer their products at lesser price or with better quality. This is very necessary especially when entering a new market, or when trying to capture higher market share in an existing saturated …show more content…

Increase the Rate of Organizational Learning: During the process of benchmarking, there are many innovative ideas which can be expressed, and this helps to promote a healthy environment of innovation and learning amongst the employees. It also facilitates sharing of experiences amongst peers and seniors alike, which leads to an enhanced work environment.
Some of the most used Quality Management tools in Benchmarking are as follows;
1. Checklist: A Checklist, true to its name, enlists all the factors which constitute a benchmark. (Hopen) 2. Pareto Chart: Arranges all categories in a descending order, i.e. from highest to lowest, to signify which is of the highest frequency or priority. Pareto rule states that 80% of the issues are usually caused by 20% of the factors and if these are correctly identified and remedied, then most of the issues can be mitigated. (Pareto Chart) Figure 2: Sample Pareto Chart
3. Affinity Diagram: These help to determine the set of issues effecting a group and its effect on the overall organizational

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