With growing demands for increased operational efficiency and process improvement in organizations of all sizes, more and more companies are turning to benchmarking as a means of setting goals and measuring performance against the products, services and practices of other organizations that are recognized as leaders. The Benchmarking Book is an indispensable guide to process improvement through benchmarking, providing managers, practitioners and consultants with all the information needed to carry out effective benchmarking studies. Covering everything from essential theory to important considerations such as project management and legal issues, The Benchmarking Book is the ideal step-by-step guide to assessing and improving your company’s processes and performance through benchmarking.

A practical, step-by-step guide to quality assurance and process improvement through benchmarking. It covers benchmarking across different industry areas, with detailed case studies to illustrate pitfalls and best practice.

Written for managers, this powerful guide produced by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), outlines the fundamentals for planning, organizing, and introducing benchmarking into the workplace. Filled with information gleaned from surveys of 87 International Benchmarking Clearinghouse members, it provides unique insight, enabling organizations to better plan their own benchmarking efforts. Within eight appendices, there is a wide spectrum of additional useful knowledge, including definitions of legal and moral behavior in the context of benchmarking, and a comparison of the numerous steps involved in its implementation. The text also includes an extensive bibliography of benchmarking and total quality management literature.

All the necessary tools to be successful.

This is an introduction to a systematic process whereby business managers can compare the efficiency of their own companies, in terms of productivity, quality and practices, with that of other organizations.

Use this in-depth guide to correctly design benchmarks, measure key performance metrics of .NET applications, and analyze results. This book presents dozens of case studies to help you understand complicated benchmarking topics. You will avoid common pitfalls, control the accuracy of your measurements, and improve performance of your software. Author Andrey Akinshin has maintained BenchmarkDotNet (the most popular .NET library for benchmarking) for five years and covers common mistakes that developers usually make in their benchmarks. This book includes not only .NET-specific content but also essential knowledge about performance measurements which can be applied to any language or platform (common benchmarking methodology, statistics, and low-level features of modern hardware). What You'll LearnBe aware of the best practices for writing benchmarks and performance testsAvoid the common benchmarking pitfalls Know the hardware and software factors that affect application performanceAnalyze performance measurements Who This Book Is For .NET developers concerned with the performance of their applications

The no-cost way to improve your organization on a daily basis Most nonprofits are already benchmarking informally. This unique book defines a formal way to benchmark. You'll learn how to prepare your organization, measure performance, and implement best practices as well as learning the five key steps of benchmarking, the arguments against benchmarking--and why you should disregard them, how benchmarking differs from evaluation and assessment, how to form a benchmarking team, how to create a "success equation" that helps you measure your organization's performance, how to make sure to measure what matters, how to choose your benchmarking partners--and what you can learn from the "wrong" partner, and how to overcome staff resistance to benchmarking. Practical tools help you benchmark what matters Real-world examples illustrate benchmarking in action. Exercises and worksheets guide you through processes such as drafting a benchmarking plan; identifying and analyzing the things in your organization that need improvement; prioritizing which processes to focus on; identifying your CTQ (critical to quality) outcomes; and more. The way to survive as a nonprofit in today's market is to thrive. With so many organizations seeking the same dollars, only the best will endure. Benchmarking ensures that your organization is always operating at peak performance. It's something you can't afford not to do--especially since you can do it for free!