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To determine the criteria for internal benchmarking candidate processes. Using those criteria, to develop a decision flowchart to employ internal or external benchmarking. To then propose a framework for implementing internal benchmarking in an organization. Finally, to use a case study to apply both the Decision Flowchart and the proposed implementation framework.

The method is theoretical framework design supported by a case study.

The development of a practical flowchart and framework is achieved. This is successfully used in improving a business process thorough an actual case study.

The information is limited to situations where quality programs including benchmarking are used or anticipated. Information is drawn from a single successful case study and existing literature.

Provides a practical prescriptive approach for identifying and applying the quality tool of benchmarking to internal processes.

This provides a new method of evaluating processes for improvement based on the availability of internal knowledge. No such flowchart has been proposed to date. It should be of use to both practitioners and academics by offering a step‐by‐step approach to improving their business processes and profitability.

In global scenario, many organizations own supply chains, which operate in different countries. The performance of these supply chains, owned by the same organization must be same if they operate in countries with similar economical, political, and social conditions. In this paper, an effort has been made to propose a methodology for the internal benchmarking to reduce the variability in performance among supply chains of same focal firm. The proposed methodology of internal benchmarking for assessment of supply chain performance demonstrated through a case supply chain.

A case of global supply chains is presented in which a focal firm owns three supply chains operating in three different countries. In order to assess and improve the performance of these supply chains relative to each other, a benchmarking methodology is proposed.

An extensive use of performance value analysis (PVA) and strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis provided good diagnosis of supply chains. This analysis can be very useful in leveraging the supply chain drivers of various supply chains belonging to same focal organization and hence bring performance of all the supply chains at the same performance level.

According to the authors' knowledge, there is no paper in the literature, which discusses the application of PVA and SWOT analysis for internal benchmarking in supply chain management and it is believed that it will be useful for supply chain managers to apply such tools to lead global development in their supply chains.

The paper considers benchmarking internal communication. It starts by briefly describing benchmarking methods — metric and qualitative benchmarking — together with the objectives behind such a programme. It goes on to discuss an IC benchmarking club which has been launched recently. Details of the sample questions asked of organisations participating in the club to obtain qualitative and quantitative data are given in the Appendix. The paper concludes by listing traits commonly found by the author's company in best practice organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the identification of barriers to the implementation of benchmarking initiatives. Managers have little guidance on strategies for successful implementation and face difficulties in anticipating problems. The main objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of typical barriers that occur in a specific type of benchmarking: internal benchmarking.

This paper systematically develops a categorized list of barriers to internal benchmarking based on the literature; and validates and enriches them with an in‐depth case study of an internal benchmarking initiative.

Barriers to internal benchmarking initiatives of different types are found: organizational barriers (people, culture, and context), benchmarking project management barriers (planning and implementation, leadership, and business pressures) and benchmarking data barriers (difficulty to access/compare data). Future studies might take these categories as a solid starting point in furthering the understanding of barriers to benchmarking.

The exploratory nature of the paper limits its generalizability.

The paper paves the way for the process of devising strategies to overcome the identified barriers. This is especially relevant because few studies to date have focused on these issues and benchmarking practitioners have insufficient knowledge to anticipate and overcome benchmarking‐related problems.

This paper contributes to theory building on the implementation of benchmarking in general; and on barriers to internal benchmarking initiatives in particular.

Benchmarking is a continuous process of comparing and measuring an organization’s business processes against those of business leaders anywhere in the world. Attempts to benchmark internal auditing in Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Bases the analysis on surveys undertaken in all three countries. The surveys of both chief executives and internal audit managers establish benchmarks for international comparisons of internal audit practice. A number of issues were addressed by the surveys including attitudes and recognition, professionalism, role and scope, career opportunities, education and training and the future role of internal audit. The comparison provides useful insights into the internal audit profession in Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The organisation‐wide drive towards total quality management (TQM) and the call for sound corporate governance require that Maltese internal audit (IA) units benchmark their operations as a first step towards the critical evaluation of their processes and the management of change. The purpose of this paper is to determine the awareness of this process in Maltese IA units, its perceived major benefits and limitations and also major barriers in its implementation.

The objective of this study is achieved through a series of semi‐structured interviews with 12 Maltese IA executives representing most Maltese IA units.

This study concludes that Maltese IA executives have a weak grasp of the benchmarking process and that, current IA evaluation techniques are mere rudimentary comparisons, essentially backward‐ and inward‐looking in nature. Maltese IA executives appreciate the benefits of benchmarking as an effective IA quality tool but are divided as to its limitations. In addition, there are organisational and cultural barriers preventing them from attaining its potential benefits.

In addition to the analysis of major obstacles to the implementation and development of this TQM tool in a European ministate, this study points to possible regulatory and organisational changes for future improvements.

This study examines the effect of four measures related to benchmarking and its successful implementation on organizational performance, controlling for size and industry. The four benchmarking measures are (1) internal preliminary competitive analysis, (2) external preliminary competitive analysis, (3) degree of organizational commitment, and (4) prior benchmarking experience (Elnathan et al. 1996). Data for the study was obtained from 157 U.S. manufacturing business units using a questionnaire instrument. The results indicate that three of the benchmarking measures have a positive effect on organizational performance that is significant. Prior experience with benchmarking, the commitment of the organization to benchmarking and internal preliminary competitive analysis meaningfully enhance firm performance.

Notes that after‐sales field service has become an established competitive differentiator among equipment manufacturers. From the service provider’s perspective, effective field service management is essential for operational productivity, customer satisfaction and retention, and profitability. Benchmarking is a process for measuring a firm’s performance against the best‐in‐class, and using such an analysis to meet or exceed the best‐in‐class performance. Develops a benchmarking approach that utilizes customer satisfaction survey results in conjunction with a zero defects metric. The applicability of this method is demonstrated through its use in competitive and internal benchmarking of equipment field services in the case of a European office‐equipment manufacturer.

This article describes the Employment Service approach to the use of benchmarking as a tool by looking at how it was used to improve a key human resource area ‐ internal vacancy filling. It covers: leadership ‐ why we decided to use benchmarking as a performance improvement tool and high level sponsorship of the project; methods ‐ the process benchmarking approach used ‐ internal, industry and generic; and results, business, customer satisfaction and organisational learning. The article concludes that benchmarking can be effectively applied in the area of human resources and can lead to significant improvements in performance. It shows how the benchmarking approach leads to individual, team and organisational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of internal benchmarking through the evaluation of quality management in two quality departments (Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC)) in a pharmaceutical company by utilizing total quality index (TQI).

In order to achieve the above-mentioned purpose a structured questionnaire was used to assess the gap between the ideal and current status of the quality management system. The mean differences between the current and ideal states for the eight critical factors were compared for the two departments using t-test.

There is difference in the actual and ideal scores on three out of eight critical factors between the QA and QC departments.

The internal benchmarking process which was applied in this case study can be applied in other pharmaceutical companies in order to improve the status of the quality management system and achieve competitive advantage.

Benchmarking of total quality management (TQM) can improve the performance of organizations. The benchmarking tool used in this study TQI is an information technology-supported tool that helps managers assess a TQM program by enabling the cost-effective measurement of key organizational processes. TQI measures the ideal and actual quality management along eight critical factors synthesized by Saraph et al. (1989).