Internal Benchmarking between product groups

[witford]

Hello All,

I have been given the task by my COO to perform a benchmarking between a group of your products.
It should include aspects of quality levels, manpower skill level, machinery used, methods used.

Target is to compare the different product ranges and see what we perform better on one product range compared to another range.

Our different products are outsourced and being produced at different locations in different countries. The products are also very labour intensive.

I am having problems in trying to quantify numerically topics such as worker skills, motivation, education level, country specific mentallities.

If someone has some experience in quantifing such factors i would be most appreciative.

Also if there are some other methods in quantifing manpower aspects i would be interested in hearing feedback.

[Coury Ferguson]

Feedback anyone?

[Marc]

Originally Posted by witford

I am having problems in trying to quantify numerically topics such as worker skills, motivation, education level, country specific mentalities.

I can't help, but I'd like to see feedback. Other than education level, I would think these would be hard to quantify.

[Steve Prevette]

Originally Posted by witford

Hello All,

I have been given the task by my COO to perform a benchmarking between a group of your products.
It should include aspects of quality levels, manpower skill level, machinery used, methods used.

Target is to compare the different product ranges and see what we perform better on one product range compared to another range.

Our different products are outsourced and being produced at different locations in different countries. The products are also very labour intensive.

I am having problems in trying to quantify numerically topics such as worker skills, motivation, education level, country specific mentallities.

If someone has some experience in quantifing such factors i would be most appreciative.

Also if there are some other methods in quantifing manpower aspects i would be interested in hearing feedback.

A first step would be to consider the context for the COO's question. If the two groups make similar products, is the intent to shut down whichever is the poorer performer? Is this an exercise in improvement - to somehow combine the best techniques of both? Or do the two groups make very different products and the COO is just looking for a general comparison? Is the COO mostly interested in the monetary bottom line? Or is he/she more interested in people issues?

If the underlying goal is to pit the two groups against each other, you need to be aware of this and its potential impact.

What are the two groups currently using as performance metrics? I'd start there in this comparison. Another basic starting point is to flowchart the way the two groups conduct production. A survey or structured interview of workers may be in order.

[Stijloor]

Originally Posted by witford

Hello All,

I have been given the task by my COO to perform a benchmarking between a group of your products.
It should include aspects of quality levels, manpower skill level, machinery used, methods used.

Target is to compare the different product ranges and see what we perform better on one product range compared to another range.

Our different products are outsourced and being produced at different locations in different countries. The products are also very labour intensive.

I am having problems in trying to quantify numerically topics such as worker skills, motivation, education level, country specific mentallities.

If someone has some experience in quantifing such factors i would be most appreciative.

Also if there are some other methods in quantifing manpower aspects i would be interested in hearing feedback.

Comparing operations with one and other is very tricky.

You may start with developing a general list of aspects with an organization that usually contribute to the success of the operation. You've already mentioned a few. For example: You can look at the Man-Machine-Methods-Measurement-Mother nature (environment) model to identify the aspects. Next, you use a standard scale (1-10 or 1-5) to grade each separate organization on all of the identified aspects. See? Now you can compare "apples with apples" and "oranges with oranges." Once the "scores" have been determined, you can set up a spreadsheet and cross-tabulate the results to make fair comparisons.

Hope this makes sense.

Stijloor.