Riordan Generic Benchmarking

Introduction

The companies used to benchmark are not necessarily in the same industry. What the team will measure is problems faced that are similar and how the companies solved them. Focus on job worth; analysis, evaluation and pricing all have common themes. They are techniques to identify the value a firm places on jobs. (Milkovitch & Newman, 2004)

Benchmarking; (also "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking") is a process used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice, usually within their own sector. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to adopt such best practice, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to challenge their practices. (Wikipedia, 2007)

The type of benchmarking used in the case our team has studied is referred to as generic benchmarking. Benchmarking can sometimes be a difficult task using other companies to compare outcomes, as they like to keep information that may lead to a competitive advantage anonymous.

Overview

A successful company is recognized not only by its innovation, continuing technology development, increase of market share and globalization, but also by its employee’s job satisfaction, or healthy working environment. Many factors contributing to the company’s success are related to human resource system practices, such as recruitment/selection process, training/career development, employee’s work/life balance, and so on. This paper presents the benchmarking of the companies that faced the same situation as Riordan Manufacturing does.

Our team will identify eight (8) companies, listing the issues related to each company and the company’s response to the issues along with any outcomes. Compiled in this team paper is a synthesis of the team’s keys findings that will be identified by the course concepts. Once achieved, the team will compare and contrast the practices used by the companies. The companies are being considered by the team: Plastipak Packaging Inc, Consolidated Container Company, Coca-Cola Company, Thomson Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Cogno Corporation, Cisco Systems Inc and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Part 1: Benchmarking

Plastipak Packaging Inc

Plastipak Packaging Inc. (Plastipak) is a holding company that manufactures plastic packaging containers for large consumer product companies. The company is headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan. Laura has chosen this company to show how Plastipak used software driven sales products to fine-tune the motivation and production problems.

Some of the same issues Riordan had in the scenario. Plastipak is using a simple, but more effective model to drive higher levels of employee productivity, motivation, and employee retention. (Plastipak, 2006) These are the concepts of motivation and employee retention. To show how Plastipak used the concepts to build the management chain solution, the description of the International Business Machines (IBM’s) software they are using can be explained.

Plastipak needed a scalable infrastructure to