Self-assessment Frameworks in Manufacturing 83 Developing and Testing Benchmarking and Self- assessment Frameworks in Manufacturing C.A . Voss London Business School, UK V. Chiesa CNR-ITIA, Milano, Italy, and P. Coughlan Trinity College, Dublin, Eire Benchmarking and self-assessment is being used increasingly by industry as a tool to help identify “best practice”, and to identify areas for improvement. In the quality management area, the impact has been particularly striking. In the US and Europe the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has been particularly effective. Many companies have used it both for benchmarking and self-assessment leading to great improvements in quality practices and performance[1]. To date these approaches have been practice led, with limited academic rigour of the kind that is found in other areas and tools for improvement in manufacturing. The research in this article set out to examine two questions, first, can an academic based approach contribute to more rigorous benchmarking and self-assessment in manufacturing and, second, can tools be developed for use in areas in manufacturing, in particular those to do with technology management. Benchmarking Benchmarking has been described as “a continuous, systematic process for evaluating the products, services and work processes for organizations that are recognized as representing best practices for the purpose of organizational improvement”[2]. It has evolved from an approach that focused mainly on measures of performance to that which focuses on the management activities and practices that lead to superior performance. The concept of benchmarking has been used by companies for many years. Until recently, it was used to compare measures of business performance and to compare product The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the UK Department of Trade and Industry who sponsored this work, the ACME directorate of the Science and Engineering Research Council who funded much of the research, and the Confederation of British Industry and its members who contributed to the testing. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, 1994, pp. 83-100. © MCB University Press, 0144-3577