Background

Policy makers across the world keep a close eye on the performance of countries' industrial development. This trend is still growing. The systematic description and use of comparisons, or benchmarking, clearly serves a strong need. Benchmarks are needed because it is difficult to assess national industrial performance on the basis of a priori norms. By industrial policy makers' point of view, such information and benchmarks can be considered as basis for future political interventions or the initiation of public programmes to stimulate technological innovations or to support the business development of respective companies.

Wherever the performance of industrial sectors can be improved, benchmarking is a useful tool. The sheer pace of change in the national and international economic and technological environment also makes it far more difficult for governments to assess domestic performance without looking at other economies. The need for benchmarking is all the greater for countries undergoing wrenching internal structural and policy shifts. When used appropriately, benchmarking of industrial sectors has proved to be one of the most effective tools for bringing about quantum-leaps in performance.

Benchmarking can be conducted at many levels - enterprise, industry, institution, government or government department. It can focus on specific matters, such as capital and labour costs, industrial and R&D infrastructure, technology, education & human resources, networking structures, access to capital, innovation, market trends, skills or the environment. The more specific the level, the easier it is to derive quantitative benchmarks; the more general the level, the harder it is to define what is relevant and, often, how to measure it.

When benchmarking industrial sectors, other well established methodologies should be used in parallel, in order to get a better understanding and more information concerning the respective sectors. Mapping of sub-sectors and identifying technological cluster, where existing, provide a clearer and better structured picture of the industrial sectors concerned. An economic mapping depicts the interaction between economically relevant agents (firms, business associations, supporting institutions, government, etc.), including the intensity of interaction and main characteristics of the relationship. The purpose of an economic mapping is threefold. First, it serves to identify the actors who play a role in a given cluster - firms and types of firms, supporting institutions, associations, government, and others. Second, it is a way to depict the flows between firms and with supporting institutions. Third, it also is way to visualize the power structure between the economic actors.

Identifying and analysing industrial clusters is a common way to analyze competitive industrial performance. In the meaning of Porters classical approach done at the end of the 90s clusters are groups of inter-related industries with two key elements. Firstly, a cluster contains firms which must be linked. Secondly, groups of inter-linked companies locate in close proximity to one other. In Porters definition clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialised suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (for example universities, standards agencies, venture capitalists, other financers and trade associations, etc.) in particular fields that compete but also co-operate." The links between firms are vertical, through buying and selling chains for example, and horizontal, through complementary products and services, the use of similar specialised inputs and other linkages. In these linkages are often including social relationships or networks that produce benefits for the firms involved due to an intensive information and knowledge flow. The geographic area covered by clusters can vary; there may even be multiple operating scales, with regional, national and even international dimensions to some clusters.

Objectives

Taking the importance of benchmarking of industrial sector into account, the General People's Committee for Industry, Electricity and Minerals has appointed VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH (VDI/VDE-IT) to describe and benchmark selected industrial sectors in Libyan as well as to identify appropriate networks or industrial clusters. This can be considered as a first step towards active long-term industrial policy measures stimulating the innovation capability and the competitiveness of the Libyan industry. The project started in November 2006 and is going to last until February 2008.

The following industrial sectors have been identified to be of primary interest by the General People's Committee for Industry, Electricity and Minerals point of view:

In order to reach the objectives defined by the General People's Committee for Industry, Electricity and Minerals, a comprehensive scientific approach is applied which takes, on one side, the current state of the art into account and, on the other side, intensively involves local experts. Based on a tailor made theoretical and practical training approach, the Libyan Innovation Managers will directly support the VDI/VDE-IT experts. By means of this approach high quality results as well as an on-the-job training by involved Libyan experts can be assured.

The following figure yields the project structure proposed for this study.

More information are available by www.cluslib.net

Contact person

For further information please contact

Dr. Gerd Meier zu Köcker (mzk@vdivde-it.de)
Thomas Köhler (koehler@vdivde-it.de)
VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH