Book excerpt: by Bob Camp The business improvement topic and quality tool called benchmarking is becoming widely understood and broadly applied. There are now applica firms that tions in almost all segments of the economy including industrial either produce a product or a service, non-profit organizations such as healthcare, government and education. The approach is starting to spread around the globe with initiatives in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America. This is commendable and reassuring and must show that there is significant interest in the approach and that it works. What is missing, however, are books and reference material that are not solely prepared in the US where benchmarking started. Theses would include examples of applications relevant to the local area and industries. They would include references to articles written about benchmarking appearing in local publications. In this fashion those interested would have near hand case histories of the use of benchmarking and therefore become encouraged to use the technique. Zairi and Leonard have done the benchmarking community a real service by documenting the European view and application of benchmark ing to a wide range of examples. But they have not stopped there. Their text includes treatment of a number of related facets of benchmarking that makes this a fairly thorough text.