MODULE 2 – CONTINUATION

QUALITY MANAGEMENT AWARDS AND PERFORMANCES

The Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Awards
- Has been one of the most catalyst of total quality in the United Stage and indeed, throughout the
world.

History and Purpose

- Recognizing that U.S. productivity was declining President Reagan signed legislation mandating a
national study/ conference on productivity in October 1982. The American Productivity and
Quality Center sponsored even computer networking conferences in 1983 to prepare for an
upcoming White House Conferences on Productivity. The final report on those conferences
recommended that “a National Quality Award,” similar to the Deming Prize in Japan, be awarded
annually to those firms that successfully challenge and meet the requirements.
The focus of the program was defined as follows:
• Helping to stimulate, American companies to improve quality and productivity for the pride of
recognition while obtaining a competitive edge through increased profits.
• Recognizing the achievements of those companies that improve the quality of their goods and
services and providing an example to others;
• Establishing guidelines and criteria that can be used by business, industrial, governmental, and
other enterprises in evaluating their own quality improvement efforts; and
• Providing specific guidance for other American enterprises that wish to learn how to manage for
high quality by making available detailed information on how winning enterprises were able to
change their cultures and achieve eminence.

The Criteria for Performance Excellence

- The award examination is based upon a rigorous set of criteria, called Criteria Performance
Excellence, designed to encourage companies to enhances their competitiveness through an
aligned approach to organizational performance management that results in:
1. Delivery of ever- improving value to customers, resulting in improved marketplace.
2. Improvement of overall company performance and capabilities.
3. Organizational and personal learning.
The criteria consist of a hierarchical set of categories, and areas to address. The seven categories are as
follows:
1. Leadership
2. Strategic Planning
3. Customer and Market Focus
4. Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
5. Human Resource Focus
6. Process Management
7. Business Result

Criteria Evolution
- As the important management practices of any organization should be, the specific award criteria
are evaluated and improved each year. Over the years, the criteria have been streamlined and
simplified to make them more relevant and useful to organizations of all types and sizes.
- The change to “Strategic Planning” signifies that quality should be a part of business planning, not
a separate issue. Throughout the document, the term performance has been substituted for
quality as conscious attempt to recognize that the principles of total quality are the foundation
for a company’s entire management system, not just the quality system.
Improvements include the following shifts in emphasis:
• From quality assurance and strategic quality planning to a focus on process management and
overall strategic planning.
• From a focus on current and future customers and markets
• From human resource utilization to human resource development and management
• From supplier quality to supplier partnerships
• From individual quality improvement activities to cycles of evaluation and improvement in all key
areas
 • From data analysis of quality efforts to an aggregate, integrated organizational level review of key
company data
• From results that focus on limited financial performance to a focus on a composite of business
results, including customer satisfaction and financial, product, service, and strategic performance

Impacts of the Baldridge Program

- The program changed the way in which many organizations around the world manage their
operations, and helped significantly to bring the principles of TQ into the daily culture of these
organizations. The true benefactors are the customers and other stakeholders who received
better products and services.

International Quality Awards and Programs

The Deming Prize
- The Deming Prize is an annual award presented to an organization that has implemented TQM
suitable for its management philosophy, scope/type/scale of business, and management
environment. Regardless of the types of business, any organization can apply for the Prize under
certain conditions, be it public or private, large or small, domestic or overseas, or part of or entire
organization. There is no limit to the number of potential recipients of the Prize each year. All
organizations that score the passing points or higher upon examination will be awarded the
Deming Prize. However, the organizations wishing to apply for the Deming Prize must carry out
the TQM Diagnosis by the Deming Prize Committee no later than one year prior to the year of
application. Please refer to “TQM Diagnosis by the Deming Prize Committee” for information.

Organizations Qualified for Receiving the Deming Prize

The Deming Prize is given to applicant organizations that realize the following three particulars by
means of TQM.
a. Under clear management policies that reflect its management principles, industry, business,
scope and business environment, the company has established proactive customer driven
business objectives and strategies based on social responsibility of the organization. And the top
management exhibits leadership in their formulation.
b. TQM is being suitably utilized and implemented for the realization of business objectives and
strategies mentioned under A) above.
c. As a result of B), along with achieving effect regarding business objectives and strategies of A)
above, organizational ability required for future growth has been secured.

European Quality Award

- An award instituted in 1992 by the European Foundation for Quality Management. It is given to
companies that can demonstrate excellence in their management of quality and that their
approach to total quality management has contributed to the satisfaction of customers,
employees, and other stakeholders. The nine first-level categories of the EQA model are:
leadership, policy and strategy, people management, resources, processes, customer
satisfaction, people satisfaction, impact on society, and business results.

Canadian Awards for Business Excellence

- The Canada Awards for Excellence program involves meeting and exceeding rigorous standards
and requirements, demonstration of continual improvement, measurement of progress, and
verification. To receive the Award, an organization must demonstrate outstanding performance
in the appropriate award category: Excellence, Innovation and Wellness, Healthy
Workplace, Mental Health at Work and Financial Wellness.
- The recipients are role models of excellence in the areas of leadership, governance, strategy,
planning, customer experience, employee engagement, innovation and wellness. The
organizations come from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, from coast-to-coast. Each
has a unique story to tell of their excellence journey, but one thing they all have in common is a
focus on continuous improvement and the pursuit of excellence.
What makes the awards unique?
- While the awards are positive and desirable, none compare with the holistic and integrated nature
of Canada Awards for Excellence standards.
 - Other awards celebrate where you are now. The Canada Awards for Excellence celebrate where
you are going tomorrow.
- Organizations do not “compete” nor are they ranked as in other awards program, but rather they
are selected on the basis of meeting or exceeding every one of the requirements of the Canada
Awards for Excellence standards.

Australian Business Excellence Award

- The Australian Quality Awards (now called Business Excellence Award) were developed
independently from the MBNQA in 1988. The Awards were previously administered by the
Australian Quality Awards Foundation, a subsidiary of the Australian Quality Council, a private,
for- profit organization. In 2002, Standards Australia International (SAI) formally acquired a range
of products and services previously owned by the Australian Quality Council. SAI’s Professional
Services Division became new home of the AQC and in recognition of the importance of business
excellence to SAI, the division has been renamed Business Excellence Australia.
Four Levels of awards are given:
1. The Business Improvement Level- encouragement recognition for “Progress toward Business
Excellence” or “Foundation in Business Excellence’’
2. The Award Level- representing Australian best practices; recognition as a Winner or Finalist
3. The Award Gold Level- open only to former award winners; represents a revalidation and ongoing
improvement
4. The Australian Business Excellence Award- open only to former Award winners; represents
international best practices evident throughout the organization.

ISO 9000: 2000

- The ISO 9000 family of quality management systems (QMS) is a set of standards that
helps organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and
regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of
QMS, including the seven quality management principles that underlie the family of
standards. ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard
must fulfil.
- This International Standard describes fundamentals of quality management systems, which form
the subject of the ISO 9000 family, and defines related terms.
This International Standard is applicable to the following:
1. organizations seeking advantage through the implementation of a quality management system;
2. organizations seeking confidence from their suppliers that their product requirements will be
satisfied;
3. users of the products;
4. those concerned with a mutual understanding of the terminology used in quality management
(e.g. suppliers, customers, regulators);
5. those internal or external to the organization who assess the quality management system or
audit it for conformity with the requirements of ISO 9001 (e.g. auditors, regulators,
certification/registration bodies);
6. those internal or external to the organization who give advice or training on the quality
management system appropriate to that organization;
7. developers of related standards.

Six Sigma
- Six sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customer’s
experience, lowers your cost, and build better leaders. – Jack Welch

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection.
It can be called “Six Sigma,” or it may have a generic or customized name for the organization like
“Operational Excellence,” “Zero Defects,” or “Customer Perfection.”
Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving
toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process –
from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.
The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To
achieve Six Sigma — statistically — a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million
opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma
opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated
using a Six Sigma calculator.
The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-
based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction through the application
of Six Sigma improvement projects. This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma sub-
methodologies: DMAIC and DMADV.
The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyse, improve, control) is an improvement
system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement.
The core philosophy of Six Sigma is based on some key concepts:
1. Think in terms of key business processes and customer requirements with a clear focus on
overall strategic objectives.
2. Focus on corporate sponsors responsible for championing projects, support team activities, help
to overcome resistance to change, and obtain resources.
3. Emphasize such a quantifiable measures as defects per million opportunities (DPMO) that can
be applied to all parts of an organization: manufacturing, engineering, administrative, software,
and so on.
4. Ensure that appropriate metrics are identified early in the process and that they focus on
business results, thereby providing incentives and accountability.
5. Provide extensive training followed by project team deployment to improve profitability, reduce
non- value- added activities, achieve cycle time reduction.
6. Create highly qualified process improvement experts (“green belts”, “black belts”, and “master
black belts”) who can apply improvement tools and lead teams.
7. Set stretch objectives for improvement.

Activity 4
1. Summarize the purposes of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award.
2. Describe the key issues addressed in each of the seven categories of the Criteria for
Performance Excellence.
3. Explain the differences among the Baldridge, European, Canadian, and Australian Quality
Awards.
4. Describe the evolution of Six Sigma.
5. What are the similarities and differences among Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and the Baldridge
approaches?