Benchmarking manufacturing performance in Australia and New Zealand

This paper reports on the levels of performance and improvement rates in a number of manufacturing performance indicators being achieved by typical manufacturers around the world and then discusses how well Australian and New Zealand companies are doing in the light of the competition. That competition being a sample of companies which is perhaps more typical than some of the exemplars who are so widely quoted in the popular management literature. The findings are based on the results from the 1996 Global Manufacturing Futures Survey. The results are presented in two ways ‐ by country or region and by industry. Australian and New Zealand manufacturers still have room for improvement in a number of areas, particularly quality, inventory and delivery performance. For the industry comparisons, what is striking is the range between best and worst.