BENCHMARKING FOR STRATEGIC MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT

Benchmarking to improve strategic manufacturing management seems to be a logical extension to benchmarking to improve operating system performance. This assumption is, however, untested. The research objective for this study was to learn how to benchmark the strategic manufacturing management process. The experiences of a consortium of non-competing firms struggling with the problems of benchmarking implementation constitute the base data for this research. The study has found that inappropriate choices of key manufacturing performance indicators were made by 50 per cent of the business units studied and this is because of poor strategic vision for manufacturing operations. Also evidence was found to show that 70 per cent of the firms studied needed a better understanding of their own processes before they could benefit from benchmarking other organizations.