Benchmarking can be broken down into twelve step approach that can be modified to any particular situation.
The 12 Steps of Benchmarking.
1. Develop senior management commitment. Just like the first step in Total Quality Management, senior management commitment is the first and most critical step to the overall success of the benchmarking effort. Without commitment from upper management, the ease of the process will become very difficult and has a greater opportunity for failure. Benchmarking involves changing critical aspects of the organization and without commitment from senior management, change will not occur.
2. Develop a mission statement. The second step of benchmarking is developing a mission statement by listing the top three or five objectives of your effort with agreement from your team members. .
3. Plan. To define the focus of the benchmarking effort, planning will need to occur. Since each team member of the process will have a different agenda for entering, some may focus on standards, customer requirements, or on a general continuous process improvement. A very important key is for everyone to agree to the scope of the study. This includes defining the scope that resolves issues in the different terminology and different activities used in the same process. Next, developing a process flowchart will help lay out all the functions of the process. This will help enhance everyone's understanding of the system to be studied while at the same time it will help establish a timeline that will keep in check any attempts to draw out the process.
4. Identify customers. This process does not usually receive the attention that it deserves. The focuses of the benchmarking effort are the customers of the internal and external processes. The customer's perceptions are critical to defining the product and coming up with the changes to processes that will improve their perception of quality while improving efficiency.