Peer Review

Best Practices Surveys

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Reviewed:: Apr 3, 2006 by Business

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: The Best Practices Surveys are descriptions of various organizations and the
best practices they employ. The Best Practices surveys are produced by the Best
Manufacturing Practices, which operates out of the BMP Center of Excellence, a
partnership among the Office of Naval Research's BMP Program, the Department of
Commerce, and the University of Maryland.

Organizations volunteer to be part of a BMP survey to share the practices they
believe are best in class. BMP sends out a survey team, at no charge, to
evaluate and document the practices. The Best Practice Survey Reports contain
practices that have been verified and documented by an independent team of
experts during BMP Surveys. Each practice provides the user with basic
background, process description, metrics and lessons learned, and a Point of
Contact for further information.
Type of Material:: This is a presentation of Best Practices Examples for professionals and
prossibly undergraduate and graduate students.
Recommended Uses:: This website should be used as tool for professionals to gain a better
understanding of Best Practices in Manufacturing as well as resource to gain
more tools and build professional development. This may also be useful for
undergraduate and graduate students studying manufacturing, leadership, and
benchmarking as well as other important business concepts.

Further, if users are interested in employing professional consultants to
integrate best practice in their manufacturing environment; there are a wide
range of services available.
Technical Requirements:: Users of this website should have general computer competency skills in order to
navigate the site. Also, if the user has teleconferencing equipment, they can
take advantage of technical services offered by the authors.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: According to the organizational website the purpose of the website is to: "help
businesses identify, research, and promote exceptional manufacturing practices,
methods, and procedures. Its objective is to empower defense and commercial
customers to operate at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness. To this
end, BMP has three core competencies represented by tools and resources that
enable organizations to identify and apply best practices and become part of a
vast, mutually supportive information exchange network
Best Practices Surveys
Systems Engineering
Web Technologies
Target Student Population:: This presentation is for business and manufacturing employees and consulting
professionals. It could also be of use to students at the graduate or upper
division undergraduate level.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Readers should have general knowledge of manufacturing or business. Background
in basic business concepts and terms as well as the manufacturing environment is
important for finding this website useful for readers.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: There are approximately eight-five company profiles available for users to
peruse and examine. There are also links to government, manufacturing,
environmental and universities that provide further insight into the Best
Practices in Manufacturing. There are several categories that are a large
benefit to the user such as Frequently Asked Questions, Collaborative Work
Environment (which provides Virtual Project Office, Collaborative Working
Groups, File Upload, List Users, Global Calendar, What' New and a 24-Hour Help
Desk),Seminars, Conferences, Survey Reports and Survey Processes.

Other services provided also include a speaker's bureau, software analysis and
failure analysis.
Concerns:: Some of the content can be a bit "dry" and many students may need some direction
or an assignment to encourage them to fully explore individual best practices
found on the site.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The site contains many good examples of best practices and the processes used to
document and evaluate those practices. As such, this is a great resource for
undergraduate or graduate student who are interested in the field and would like
to learn more or possibly search for a potential internship opportunity.
Concerns:: The site may be too focused on reference/real world examples to be of use to
students/teachers.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: This resource is geared more toward those students who have a general
prerequisite knowledge of business terms and concepts and the manufacturing
environment.
Concerns:: The site has several videos available explaining the goals of the site and the
survey process. However, some experienced difficulty getting the videos to run.
Given that the material is somewhat "dry, " the videos might be more useful as a
teaching tool than the survey reports, but they did not run for some.

Other Issues and Comments:: I found this site to be very interesting and comprehensive. The site was
contacted about the videos not running and they have been 'fixed'. However, some
still report that only the first 30 seconds of each video runs.
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