It’s often important for our clients to demonstrate that they are undertaking their processes in line with industry best practice, or that they are delivering best practice in their activities. But use of the term ‘best practice’ is a bit misleading: how do you know you are the best if you do not know what everyone else is doing?
To avoid this confusion, we substitute ‘best practice’ with ‘good practice’. Good practice is generally taken to mean a technique that is accepted as superior to alternatives, because it produces results that exceed those achieved by the standard way of doing things.
At Frazer-Nash, we are often asked to provide independent third-party assurance that the processes used by a client represents best practice. To achieve this, we will:
- Review the currently utilised processes
- Determine if there are any applicable national or international standards, and compare the method to them
- Compare the current process to operating experience from the industry
- Review operating experience from similar industries which could be of benefit
- Undertake workshops and discussions with industry experts to extract learning from experience
- Seek advice from Frazer-Nash experts with experience in the sector
- Provide recommendations to align the current process to the strictest identified requirements.
Committing to use good practice, and then implementing it in a process has very real benefits for businesses. These include:
- Reduced risk
- Improved health, safety and environmental protection
- Increased efficiency
- Improved quality and
- Repeatable results.
These investigations help our clients, but also provide us with excellent opportunities to develop our own expertise, and to learn from other industries.