Internal manufacturing strategy audit: the first step in integrated strategic benchmarking

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how auditing internal manufacturing can improve the effectiveness of the benchmarking process. It is the intent of this study to provide a set of internal auditing guidelines and recommendations for organizations committed to benchmarking. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire‐based mailed survey was used to the audit manufacturing process. The questionnaire is a modified version of manufacturing futures survey. The survey contains a series of questions that managers need to answer about themselves and their competitors, covering the following categories. The questionnaire contains the following categories: corporate strategy and competitive priorities, and manufacturing performance objectives and action plans. Findings – The proposed integrated strategic benchmarking (ISB) requires the benchmarking organization to conduct a thorough auditing of corporate strategy and deployment of the strategy into manufacturing strategy and action plans before committing resources to external benchmarking. Statistical results indicate evidence of misalignments and lack of consensus at various levels of the organizations. Lack of proactive strategy to develop organizational core competencies, miscommunication among managers, inadequate employee training, inconsistent short term and long‐term decisions, and inconsistent employee evaluation and reward system are the primary causes for such misalignments. Successful resolution of such inconsistencies in internal corporate and manufacturing strategies is the critical first step in an ISB. Originality/value – This paper demonstrates how auditing internal manufacturing strategy can improve the effectiveness of the benchmarking process.