Successful organizations often undergo periodic assessments to ascertain existing strengths, challenges, and opportunities. Assessing or benchmarking is the practice of evaluating performance against a standard. Assessments often reveal gaps between actual and desired conditions, as established by industry best practices or another applicable standard. Gaps often provide opportunities for improvements.
Accordingly, there are three types of benchmarking exercises: (1) Internal, where a multi-facility organization establishes organizational standards for all facilities, (2) Industry, where the organization measures performance against other organizations in the same industry, and (3) Best-practice, where the organization measures performance against industry leaders, regardless of industry.