Benchmarking is a means to obtain comparative information to assist in setting, measuring and improving production performance.

The term benchmarking is know to all of us, as we are in a performance-dependent industry that redefines its production challenges on a daily and nightly bases.

As every newspaper production facility is interested to lift its own performance, it must come as a surprise that industry-wide, no true benchmarking data is available.

Not that it was not attempted and possibly even successfully road tested, but it seems that it disappeared into the “too-hard basket.” So what is there to be gained in a benchmarking exercise?

First of all, benchmarking is not a one-off process where the result provides a snapshot of the current operation and satisfies the performance outlook for the future.

The aim of benchmarking is to create a production, organizational and cultural mindset, and to manage costs, value and time elements of productivity. Benchmarking can be further divided into strategic benchmarking and process benchmarking.

Strategic benchmarking is concerned with profit rations, funds spent on administration, testing, market research and pricing. Process benchmarking, on the other hand, relates to the comparison of operational efficiency in plants and services provided.

Whereas some of the strategic benchmarking merges with the process benchmarking, the aim is to continuously improve the quality of the newspaper production, its time and its value.

There are two sides to every pendulum, on the one side, and for argument’s sake, we’ll call it the negative side. The aim is to reduce the negative influence of the performance. There, the reduction of the error rates of the operation, measured often in copies and time wasted, is the primary aim.

On the positive side, the enhancement of existing strength leads to improvements. Benchmarking with TQM, re-engineering and other buzzwords aims to replace the proven unsuccessful quick fixes of the past. A lasting, but more a continuously redefined, productivity and effectiveness requires a tool that belongs well and truly in the field of change management.

Interestingly, the average production equipment manufacturers, from prepress to press to mailroom, have no provision in their repertoire for productivity improvement, change management, or controlled performance enhancement, irrespective of the age and nature of the production, the location and local specific.

One exception I have encountered with a successful implementation productivity improvement is the process improvement projects developed by Eurografica.

Dirk Schmidtbleicher, Euro-grafica’s process improvement specialist says: “It is not only rewarding to have achieved a set goal, but to return to the sites after several months of absence and to register that the attitude of the people towards the process improvement has not changed is fantastic.

“It is easier to work with each company on their own goals rather than to promote what other facilities have achieved from the beginning.”

Process improvement strategies and strategic benchmarking are not just suitable for the press but for the mailroom and other production areas. Once manufacturers realize this, they will see a productivity achievement with their equipment that they would not have thought possible.

Manufacturers are to step in and provide the benchmarking data that may not be available because of confidentiality concerns.

However, I question the need for “real” data. I have seen most results achieved because of set and realistic goals and further improved through modification of the actual goal. This eventually creates an unrelated internal benchmarking concept.

It would be nice to know how one compares with others, to know that one has achieved world best standards. Nevertheless, the answer to the question of how to sustain such production effectiveness efforts is the key to lasting success. Any productivity benchmarking must be aimed to be a lasting productivity program.

Unlike once-off awards and prizes, the programs shall aim to measure and benchmark productivity today, tomorrow and the day after.