Benchmarking: The process of benchmarking sometimes also referred as best practice benchmarking is comparing one's business processes, products

and performance metrics to industry bests. Sometimes comparison can be with best of other industry as well. Benchmarking itself may be a one-off event at some time interval, but mostly it is treated as a continuous process by which organization continually seek to improve their practices. Benchmarking may also be carried out may be carried out collaboratively by groups of companies for their mutual benefits At SAIL, RDCIS is nodal agency for benchmarking techno-economic and other quality related parameters of processes and products. RDCIS identifies the processes which are critical in the nature and can be benchmarked against the best of industry. During the benchmarking process, the practices that are resulting into gaps in parameters are thoroughly analysed. Also, it is considered that gaps that exists in benchmarked parameters can be addressed by suitable technological interventions. Brainstorming sessions are conducted in operating committee meetings and finally during benchmarking meetings to analyse data from other similar plants and industries which also helps to identify best practices in their plants. A booklet on benchmarking is being compiled and used as reference document for identification of focus area of R&D efforts in near future by RDCIS . The term benchmark, originates from the chiseled horizontal marks made by surveyors usually in stone structures, into which an angle-iron could be placed to form a "bench" for a leveling rod, the process ensures that a leveling rod could be accurately repositioned in the same reference place in the future.