Simply stating, benchmarking is an approach of setting goals and measuring productivity based on best industry practices.

It is a process of continuous improvement in search for competitive advantage. It measures a company’s products, services and practices against those of its competitors or other acknowledged leaders in their field.

Benchmarking helps in improving performance by learning from best practices and the processes by which they are achieved.

Benchmarking can help in almost all aspect of business that are amenable to comparison and are significant to business.

An organisation can use benchmarking process to achieve improvement in diverse range of management function like:

• Maintenance operations

• Assessment of total manufacturing costs

• Product development

• Product distribution

• Customer services

• Plant utilization levels

• Human resource management