A primary tool of the continuous improvement process that measures and evaluates the quality of an organization's goods, services, or processes as compared with the quality produced by the best-performing companies in the industry is known as

Benchmark

Explanation: Benchmark can be described as a set of standard rules or metrics adopted by a company or organization used in evaluating and maintaining the level of quality of goods and services. Benchmarking is used for making comparison based on quality usually with the best performing companies involved in the production of related goods or services. Benchmark are mainly adopted for the sake of making continuous effort in the production or provision of improved quality goods and services.

a: social security and social programs

answer; fair labor and standard act;