Benchmarking best manufacturing practices - A study into four sectors of Turkish industry

Reports on a benchmarking study conducted to quantify how well companies op erating in various sectors of Turkish industry match up to best practice, b oth in the practices they adopt and in the operational outcomes that result , and to test the hypothesis that the closer a company is to best practice, the more likely it is for that company to achieve higher business performa nce. The survey conducted in 1997 and 1998 included 82 companies from the T urkish electronics, cement, automotive sectors and part and component suppl iers to the appliance industry. For data gathering. employs the Competitive Strategies and Best Practices Benchmarking Questionnaire, supported ly, so me follow-up interviews and one-day site visits. Classifies two small group s of companies as leaders and laggers, depending on how close they were to best practice. Shows that the leaders have performed better than the lagger s in adopting best manufacturing practices and in the achievement of high p erformance La,els. The leaders also have achieved substantially higher busi ness performance than the laggers. Furthermore, observes that large-sized c ompanies outperform the rest both in terms of their success in implementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational outcomes an d that there is no appreciable difference between industrial sectors in imp lementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational ou tcomes.