Читать книгу Supply Chain Management Best Practices - David Blanchard - Страница 33

Looking again at the Penn State study, it turns out that more than 90% of the companies who do benchmark are using the results to encourage improved supply chain performance. Reduced operating costs, improved customer service, and improved productivity top the list of accomplishments tied to benchmarking.

“Benchmarking is the process of identifying, sharing, and using knowledge and best practices,” observes Joe Walden, executive director of the University of Kansas's Supply Chain Leadership Center, “which means you've got to admit that someone else does something better than you, and that you can learn something from them.” According to Walden, the key to benchmarking is understanding what you're measuring as well as why you're measuring it. “If you're not measuring from the standpoint of the customer,” he says, “then you're not measuring the right things.”

The right things, Walden explains, include customer order cycle time, dock-to-stock time, fill rates, personnel turnover, training programs, and reverse logistics. “Benchmarking is not industrial tourism,” he says, noting that if your sole motivation is to learn what your competitors are up to, you're missing the whole point. Benchmarking should be used to identify how your industry defines best-in-class, and then to perform a gap analysis. Once you're able to determine the difference (i.e., gap) between where you are and where best-in-class is, then you can take the necessary steps to improve your performance.¹²