Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and processes of those studied (the "targets") to one's own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful.

Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.

Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this process is used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to improve their practices.

Benchmarking (journal)

Benchmarking is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes covers the field of quality management. The editor-in-chief is Angappa Gunasekaran (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth). The journal was established in 1994 as Benchmarking for Quality Management & Technology and obtained its current name in 1999. It is currently published by Emerald Group Publishing. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Inspec, ProQuest databases, and Scopus.

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Benchmarking (geolocating)

Benchmarking (also known as benchmark hunting) is a hobby activity in which participants find benchmarks (also known as survey markers or geodetic control points). Technically, the term "bench mark" is only used to refer to survey markers that designate a certain elevation, but hobbyists often use the term benchmarks to include triangulation stations or reference marks. They typically then log their finds online. Like geocaching, the activity has become popular since about 1995, propelled by the availability of on-line data on the location of survey marks (with directions for finding them) and by the rise of hobbyist-oriented websites.

Many survey markers in the U.S. were set over 100 years ago. There was also a surge in creating these marks in the U.S. from about 1930 to 1955, in conjunction with the expansion of map-making activities across the country. In the U.S. some of these marks (triangulation stations and GPS points, loosely also referred to as "benchmarks") have precise "adjusted" coordinates (latitude and longitude). The "ADJUSTED" coordinates are precise to sub-centimeter accuracy, while others, typically true elevation Bench Marks, have only coordinates scaled from a map. "SCALED" coordinates were read from a topographic map, rather than being surveyed. Many are accurate to 100 feet but some few are as much as 3,000 or 4,000 feet distant from the mark to which they refer, rendering a handheld GPS unit of little use in locating them. Most marks have clear "to-reach" descriptions, but some lack complete descriptions, or changes in the surrounding buildings, roads, or terrain over decades make the descriptions obsolete. Marks may have been removed by construction or buried.