FOREWORD
Since its establishment in 2001, the Asian Productivity Organization-Best Practice
Network (APO-BPN) has grown into a large network of about 88 organizations from both
the private and public sectors, including small and medium enterprises.
In the past six years, the APO-BPN was able to generate useful knowledge—best
practices of 36 organizations under nine topic areas—which were used by other
organizations in the network to continuously improve. They were also able to learn from
each other on the benchmarking process. The APO-BPN has also helped the National
Productivity Organizations (NPO) position themselves as leaders in knowledge transfer;
many of them now have the knowledge and confidence on how to support benchmarking
in their own countries.
The APO-BPN has gone through three cycles of sharing of best practices, and is now
on its way to using e-collaboration to take advantage of the benefits of information and
communication technology (ICT). The i-Bench initiated by the China Productivity Center
and the e-Benchmark System started by the National Productivity Corporation,
Malaysia—of which cases are included in this publication—are examples of the efforts
being done to conduct benchmarking using ICT. The APO-BPN Knowledge Portal is also
being developed to serve as the network’s activity communication channel, platform for
knowledge and information exchange among NPOs, and knowledge management system.
With the introduction of e-benchmarking, however, face-to-face interaction should not be
set aside as it contributes to maintaining relationships and strengthening collaboration
among NPOs.
In September 2006, the APO-BPN just concluded its seventh workshop, of which
result is this third volume of the best practice case studies in Asia. The best practices
featured are on measuring the impact of business excellence approaches, key performance
indicators for SMEs, and public service excellence. As in the first and second volume, the
organizations represented in this compendium are coded to protect internal
confidentialities, and also to emphasize the leading practices rather than the image of the
organization.
The best practices contained in this publication are meant to be shared among
organizations and adapted according to their needs, helping them achieve competitiveness,
thereby contributing to APO’s overall goal of productivity enhancement and
socioeconomic development.
Shigeo Takenaka
Secretary-General
Tokyo,
October 2007
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