FOREWORD

The Asian Productivity Organization (APO), with its aim of enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of enterprises located in its member countries, has established a Best Practice Network (BPN). The BPN will generate, share, and transfer knowledge on best practices for the purpose of performance improvement.

Knowledge on best practices provides a competitive advantage for organizations in the knowledge-based economy. Whether in manufacturing or services, in the private or public sector, enterprises must benchmark themselves against the best standards or practices worldwide to achieve a competitive advantage and business excellence. The knowledge gained could also be used to adapt and innovate the best practices and thus introduce methods that are “better than the best.” Such best practice benchmarking, however, is not very easy for an individual organization to carry out on its own. Some major difficulties faced include:

• Enterprises may not be familiar with sources of best practices, especially those in other countries.
• Best practice organizations may be reluctant to share knowledge on best practices.
• The cost of gaining best practice knowledge could be prohibitive.

The APO BPN has been established to help organizations overcome the above difficulties and undertake international benchmarking. The network is designed to solve accessibility problems, enabling its members to learn from, adapt, and innovate on the best practices in other countries. The knowledge gained will also be disseminated more widely in participating countries. The BPN will leverage its linkages with NPOs located throughout Asia and with other productivity and quality organizations worldwide.

As a start, the APO BPN will conduct benchmarking projects in key areas that NPO client organizations identify as useful. It will support the transfer of best practice knowledge to those clients across countries and position NPOs as leaders in this knowledge transfer. A “sharing and learning methodology framework” has been designed to achieve this purpose (see Appendix 1). This methodology framework is consistent with comprehensive methodologies used for best practice benchmarking internationally. Each participating organization in the demonstration project will receive a best practice benchmarking kit, and project participants will be briefed on using the methodology. The methodology covers the following four phases:

• planning;
• analysis;
• integration; and
• action.

The planning phase identifies the scope of the project topic for benchmarking, the development of the data collection instrument, the briefing of participants on the approach to be adopted for best practice benchmarking, and the collection of data. The analysis phase determines the strengths and learning needs of participating organizations and they initiate sharing and learning and identify external benchmark organizations for learning purposes, if required. The integration phase consolidates the sharing of knowledge and learning from best practices and the development of action plans by the participating organizations based on the learning. Finally, the action phase involves the implementation of action plans developed by the participating organizations, monitoring of improvements made, and review and improvement of the benchmarking methodology.

This benchmarking training manual is designed to help NPOs:

• recognize the usefulness of the APO BPN methodology framework;
• learn how to apply the steps in the methodology;
• understand their role as well as the role of other parties in applying the framework;
• understand the deliverables for each step of the methodology; and
• brief and train their participating client organizations.

This benchmarking training workshop manual is structured as a practical “how-to” guide that will help NPOs and their clients (supported by the NPO Working Group) adopt the methodology framework. The manual is restricted to the “elearning and sharing” aspects of benchmarking, which is the basis for the APO BPN. Other platforms of support will be available to NPOs that would like more assistance in benchmarking. Application of the benchmarking principles and methodology will be via interactive classroom discussion and syndicate group activities. Participants are encouraged to complete the activities. Finally, this manual is intended to be a useful reference for participation in the APO BPN.

– SHIGEO TAKENAKA, APO Secretary-General, Tokyo, March 2005