The other letters used to outline the entire
benchmarking process (PARTNER) include:
• A for Assemble. Once the right
problems are identified, a team should be assembled to follow
through. A cross-functional team consisting of people with
interests and talents best aligned with the problems to be
tackled is the recruiting model. A training plan should be
developed to transfer understanding of helpful concepts and
techniques to the team. Hard skills associated with solving the
priority problems (e.g. pull systems for material or
information flow problems) and soft skills (teamwork, goal
setting, etc.) should both be included. A plan to move forward
then is to be assembled by the team.
• R for Research. Or the new quality R
is for root cause analysis, the technique for discovering the
truth. This research is not that which uncovers a cure however.
The research required here in benchmarking settles for
uncovering causes— reasons why the target problems exist.
Methods used are interviewing and flowcharting and then
follow-up group review. The methods are simple. All you need is
time which is partially the reason for our next letter.
• T for Time. Time has never been
unimportant—it's equated with money and a #1 excuse—If I
only had the time! Mick Jagger had a positive mental attitude
toward time that we need to adopt: Time is on My Side. Time to
get through the first steps of the benchmarking process is
critical knowing that if you don't start out with the right
problems, the right people, the right causes of the problems,
you can't construct worthwhile follow-up steps.
But there's another use of time that needs to
be addressed. The use of time in performance measurement. Many
companies have replaced quality with time as their primary focus
for improvement initiatives. The theory is that if process time
goes down, quality and profits go up. The conflicting idiom is
that 'haste makes waste'. But if time compression is based on
recognition of value-adding vs non-value adding (waste) steps,
the drive for time reduction should always yield positive
results. The key here is to recognize that if time is part of
the solution, whenever possible, current and target performance
metrics should be presented in a time unit of measure.
• N for New. Baby needs a new pair of
shoes. Who says? You
or the baby?! New is important, new is fun
but new is not always necessary and it's definitely not the
first thing you do—i.e. rush out and look at something new—especially
if no one is complaining. Now, of course, we don't wait until
the baby cries to get new shoes—just as we shouldn't wait
for our customers to scream before we do anything for them. We
should anticipate screams and prevent them from ever
occurring.
But this whole issue should be covered in
the very first step of problem identification. Not here, this
is too late in the program. And searching externally for new
information or answers or better ways shouldn't happen until
now, after we've clearly uncovered the details of what it is
that has to be improved. We can't uncover the new solutions
until the real, lower level problems are exposed. This is why
the plant tours and visits are under the letter N. Now is the
time for that sort of activity, recognizing that it's only one
of many ways to capture new information. Besides, the plant
visit is probably the most expensive way of gathering external
data and information. There are other options such as
telephone and mail survey and interview, archival records,
media and other publication sources.
• £ for Examine. Take a close look
at all the data and information uncovered both internally and
externally and compare. What is there to learn? This phase is
a dual audit of not only how good you are as an organization
(in the target practices) but also how well you have executed
the benchmarking process. For example, if you find that you
are having difficulty comparing anything, it may be pointing
to an inadequate problem definition & measurement and/or
information discovery. Therefore, again stressing the critical
importance of doing your homework before the new information
discovery phase.
The other element here is that of searching
for the performance gap or answering the question, "How
good or bad are we really?" Of course, hoping to avoid
the now famous remark from Tom Peters' researched company,
"We're no worse than anyone else!"
The discovery at the Examine & Compare
step in the benchmarking process might be that you are the
best and, therefore, future benchmarks and comparisons will
be done on internal data. Now don't get excited, the chances
of this happening are about the same as hitting the lottery
but this is where you're targeting to be and quality practice
of the benchmarking process will lead you there.
• R for Results. Results to
implement. No free lunch in the benchmarking arena. This step
could take longer than all the others combined. This step
says, "Hey, I hope you learned something about your
company practices and that now you're going to do something
about it!" Seeing, hearing, or reading about the better
way is one thing—implementing it successfully, quite
another.
This last step in the process is really a
first step in a series of change execution steps that will
include looping back into the benchmarking process. It's time
to set up continuous improvement or task teams to focus on
change implementation. Then the change should be compared to
how it addresses the original problem and performance.
Follow-up flowcharts and measurements may be made, etc. The
results to implement phase of the benchmarking process defines
top priority total quality management projects!
Well, how do we ensure that the projects defined are truly
top
priority? To practice what we're preaching
(or to walk our talk to use the hippest lingo!) we need to very
carefully execute step one of the benchmarking process. The key
to success: the target problems have to not only be carefully
identified, they have to be confirmed.
