The Nation's Top
Honor for Excellence
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award
Gregory P. Smith
 Are you facing the challenges of becoming
a global organization? Reducing cost and cycle time?
Managing the use of more part-time, temporary, and contract workers? Does
improvement in the value of your organization's stock, operating income;
sales, return on sales, employment and asset growth interest you?
Maybe all the hundreds of business
improvement books such as "fish" and "moving cheese" have attracted your
attention. And then there are other more complex business tools such as
ISO, Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, and Kaizen. Which one works? Which one
is best?
I have worked with hundreds of businesses
and find all business owners and executives want to create
excellent organizations, but many are unsure how to do it.
What is needed is ONE business improvement model that helps improve
performance in EVERY aspect of the organization--unifying strategy from
top to bottom.
The good news is there is an excellent
process available and even better--it is free of charge. The name of the
process is the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Consider Branch-Smith Printing, a 2002
Malcolm Baldrige Award winner. Branch-Smith is a small 70-person,
family-owned business in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. They began using the
Baldrige process in the 90's and transformed their business from a
typical, family-owned style of management into a professionally managed
organization generating excellent results that speak for themselves. From
1998 to 2001 they increased the number of customers from 91 to 167. From
1997 to 2001 they tripled their market share and during the same period
increased sales by 72%. This is remarkable when other printing companies
experienced decreasing sales during the same period.
Branch-Smith is only one of thousands of
U.S. organizations finding the Criteria to be a significant tool for
improving performance on the critical factors that drive overall success.
Business, education, and health care organizations can all benefit from
using the performance criteria provided in the Baldrige application
process.
The Criteria provide a valuable framework
for assessing and measuring performance on a composite of key indicators
of organizational performance: financial, human resources, operational,
and customer satisfaction. One applicant said,
“There is no better assessment of your
organization's performance available than applying for the Award. The
Criteria for Performance Excellence are unique in addressing all the
critical elements of your performance system.”
Does the Baldrige process generate
results or just another fad? A comparison of Baldrige Award recipients to
the Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) shows that the 24 publicly-traded,
1988-1998 Baldrige Award recipients, as a group, outperformed the S&P 500
by approximately 3.8 to 1.The six publicly-traded, whole company Award
recipients, as a group, outperformed the S&P 500 by approximately 4.8 to
1.
You do not have to win the award to
benefit from the Malcolm Baldrige process. Working through the criteria
and submitting an application offers valuable benefits. The feedback
report that every applicant receives contains both strengths and
opportunities for improvement - important inputs that can help your
organization improve.
Awards may be given
annually in each of five categories: Manufacturing, Service, Small
Business, Education, and Health Care. Since 1988, 49 organizations have
received the Baldrige Award, including Motorola, Inc., Ritz-Carlton
Hotels, Wainwright Manufacturing, FedEx, and SSM Health Care.
Sixty-eight organizations
have sent NIST their application for the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award, the nation’s Presidential award for excellence. Last year,
49 businesses, schools, and health care organizations applied. Over the
next six months, teams of specially trained examiners will evaluate these
68 organizations to determine which will receive the Award this fall by
President Bush.
The 68 applicants for the
2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award include 10 large
manufacturers, eight service companies, 12 small businesses, 19 education
organizations and 19 health care organizations. This is an increase in all
categories compared with the previous year.
The application process
for the Baldrige Award is rigorous and thorough. Applicants for the award
submit up to 50 pages of details showing processes, improvements, and
results in seven areas, including leadership, customers and markets, human
resources and strategic planning.
Information about the Baldrige National Quality Program and the
application process is available free of charge from the Baldrige National
Quality Program website at
http://www.quality.nist.gov.
Greg Smith is a nationally recognized
speaker, author, and Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award. He has written numerous books including his latest, Here
Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to
High Retention. Greg has been featured on television programs such
as Bloomberg News, PBS television, and in publications including
Business Week, USA Today, Kiplinger's, President and CEO, and the
Christian Science Monitor. He is the President and "Captain of the
Ship" of a management-consulting firm, Chart Your Course International,
located in Atlanta, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464. More articles
available: http://www.chartcourse.com
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2003 Baldrige
Award recipients are:
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Medrad, Inc., Indianola, Pa. (manufacturing);
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Boeing Aerospace Support, St. Louis, Mo. (service)
(Boeing Airlift and Tanker Programs, Long Beach, Calif.,
received the Baldrige Award in 1998 in the manufacturing
category);
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Caterpillar Financial Services Corp., Nashville, Tenn.
(service);
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Stoner Inc., Quarryville, Pa. (small business);
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Community Consolidated School District 15, Palatine,
Ill. (education);
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Baptist Hospital, Inc., Pensacola, Fla. (health care)
View
highlights
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Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, Kansas City, Mo.
(health care).
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Greg Smith is an Examiner for
the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
Press
Release
Please Contact Us If We Can Help You Prepare for or
Apply for the Award
770-860-9464
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