QUALITY AWARDS

Baldrige Award

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was created by Public Law 100-107, signed into law on August 20, 1987. The Award Program, responsive to the purposes of Public Law 100-107, led to the creation of a new public-private partnership. Principal support for the program comes from the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, established in 1988.

The Award is named for Malcolm Baldrige, who served as Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until his tragic death in a rodeo accident in 1987. His managerial excellence contributed to long-term improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of government. The Findings and Purposes Section of Public Law 100-107 states that:"

1. The leadership of the United States in product and process quality has been challenged strongly (and sometimes successfully) by foreign competition, and our Nation's productivity growth has improved less than our competitors' over the last two decades.
2. American business and industry are beginning to understand that poor quality costs companies as much as 20 percent of sales revenues nationally and that improved quality of goods and services goes hand in hand with improved productivity, lower costs, and increased profitability.
3. Strategic planning for quality and quality improvement programs, through a commitment to excellence in manufacturing and services, are becoming more and more essential to the well-being of our Nation's economy and our ability to compete effectively in the global marketplace.
4. Improved management understanding of the factory floor, worker involvement in quality, and greater emphasis on statistical process control can lead to dramatic improvements in the cost and quality of manufactured products.
5. The concept of quality improvement is directly applicable to small companies as well as large, to service industries as well as manufacturing, and to the public sector as well as private enterprise.
6. In order to be successful, quality improvement programs must be management-led and customer-oriented, and this may require fundamental changes in the way companies and agencies do business.
7. several major industrial nations have successfully coupled rigorous private-sector quality audits with national awards giving special recognition to those enterprises the audits identify as the very best; and
8. A national quality award program of this kind in the United States would help improve quality and productivity by:

1. Helping to stimulate American companies to improve quality and productivity for the pride of recognition while obtaining a competitive edge through increased profits;
2. Recognizing the achievements of those companies that improve the quality of their goods and services and providing an example to others;
3. Establishing guidelines and criteria that can be used by business, industrial, governmental, and other organizations in evaluating their own quality improvement efforts; and
4. Providing specific guidance for other American organizations that wish to learn how to manage for high quality by making available detailed information on how winning organizations were able to change their cultures and achieve eminence."

Following the receipt of the Award applications, the first step of the Award process review cycle begins with the Independent Review, in which members of the Board of Examiners are assigned to each of the applications. Each application is evaluated independently by Examiners, who write observations relating to the Scoring System.

All applicants are then sent through a Consensus Review. A team of Examiners, led by a Senior Examiner, conducts a series of reviews, first managed virtually through a secure Web site and eventually concluded through a focused conference call. The purpose of this series of reviews is for the team to reach consensus on comments and scores that capture the team’s collective view of the applicant’s strengths and opportunities for improvement based on the inputs from the Independent Review.

After the Consensus Review process, the Panel of Judges selects applicants to receive site visits based upon the scoring profiles. If an applicant is not selected for Site Visit Review, one of the Examiners on the Consensus Team edits the final consensus report, which becomes the feedback report. Site visits are conducted for the highest-scoring applicants to clarify any uncertainty or confusion the Examiners may have regarding the written application and to verify that the information in the application is correct.

After the site visit is completed, the team of Examiners prepares a final site visit scorebook. Applications, consensus scorebooks, and site visit scorebooks for all applicants receiving site visits are forwarded to the Panel of Judges. The Judges make final recommendations on which applicants should receive the Award. Following the Judges’ review and recommendations of Award recipients, the Site Visit Team Leader edits the final site visit scorebook, which becomes the feedback report.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is given by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology. Through the actions of the National Productivity Advisory Committee chaired by Jack Grayson, it was established by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987 - Public Law 100-107 and named for Malcolm Baldrige, who served as United States Secretary of Commerce during the Reagan administration from 1981 until his 1987 death in a rodeo accident.

The seven categories of the criteria are:

1. Leadership
2. Strategic Planning
3. Customer & Market Focus
4. Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management
5. Workforce Focus
6. Process Management
7. Results

The award is presented to companies in three categories: manufacturing, service and small businesses. Evaluations done on a 1000 point system categorized under seven parts as given below.

Deming’s Prize

The Deming prize, established in December 1950 in honor of W. Edwards Deming, was originally designed to reward Japanese companies for major advances in quality improvement. Over the years it has grown, under the guidance of Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) to where it is now also available to non-Japanese companies, albeit usually operating in Japan, and also to individuals recognized as having made major contributions to the advancement of quality. The awards ceremony is broadcast every year in Japan on national television.

Two categories of awards are made annually, the Deming Prize for Individuals and the Deming Application Prize.

The W. Edwards Deming Institute states that The Deming Prize is awarded to companies, or divisions of companies, which have demonstrated a distinctive performance improvement through the application of TQM in a given year. The Deming Prize is also awarded to companies that improved their application of quality control and quality management with the pursuit of TQM in a given year.

The Deming Application Prize Checklist

1. Policies

(1) Quality and quality control policies and their place in overall business management.

(2) Clarity of policies (targets and priority measures)

(3) Methods and processes for establishing policies

(4) Relationship of policies to long - and short - term plans

(5) Communication (deployment) of policies, and grasp and management of achieving policies

(6) Executives and managers leadership

2. Organization

(l) Appropriateness of the organizational structure for quality control and status of employee involvement

(2) Clarity of authority and responsibility

(3) Status of interdepartmental coordination

(4) Status of committee and project team activities

(5) Status of staff activities

(6) Relationships with associated companies (group companies, vendors, contractors, sales companies, etc.)

3. Information

(l) Appropriateness of collecting and communicating external information

(2) Appropriateness of collecting and communicating internal information

(3) Status of applying statistical techniques to data analysis

(4) Appropriateness of information retention

(5) Status of utilizing information

(6) Status of utilizing computers for data processing

4. Standardization

(l) Appropriateness of the system of standards

(2) Procedures for establishing, revising and abolishing standards

(3) Actual performance in establishing, revising and abolishing standards

(4) Contents of standards

(5) Status of utilizing and adhering to standards

(6) Status of systematically developing, accumulating, handing down and utilizing technologies

5. Human resources

(l) Education and training plans and their development and results utilization

(2) Status of quality consciousness, consciousness of managing jobs, and understanding of quality control

(3) Status of supporting and motivating self-development and self-realization

(4) Status of understanding and utilizing statistical concepts and methods

(5) Status of QC circle development and improvement suggestions

(6) Status of supporting the development of human resources in associated companies

6. Quality assurance

(l) Status of managing the quality assurance activities system

(2) Status of quality control diagnosis

(3) Status of new product and technology development (including quality analysis, quality deployment and design review activities)

(4) Status of process control

(5) Status of process analysis and process improvement (including process capability studies)

(6) Status of inspection, quality evaluation and quality audit

(7) Status of managing production equipment, measuring instruments and vendors

(8) Status of packaging, storage, transportation, sales and service activities

(9) Grasping and responding to product usage, disposal, recovery and recycling

(l0) Status of quality assurance

(11) Grasping of the status of customer satisfaction

(l2) Status of assuring reliability, safety, product liability and environmental protection

7. Maintenance

(l) Rotation of management (PDCA) cycle control activities

(2) Methods for determining control items and their levels

(3) In-control situations (status of utilizing control charts and other tools)

(4) Status of taking temporary and permanent measures

(5) Status of operating management systems for cost, quantity, delivery, etc.

(6) Relationship of quality assurance system to other operating management systems

8. Improvement

(l) Methods of selecting themes (important activities problems and priority issues)

(2) Linkage of analytical methods and intrinsic technology

(3) Status of utilizing statistical methods for analysis

(4) Utilization of analysis results

(5) Status of confirming improvement results and transferring them to maintenance/control activities

(6) Contribution of QC circle activities

9. Effects

(l) Tangible effects (such as quality, delivery, cost, profit, safety and environment)

(2) Intangible effects

(3) Methods for measuring and grasping effects

(4) Customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction

(5) Influence on associated companies

(6) Influence on local and international communities

l0. Future plans

(l) Status of grasping current situations

(2) Future plans for improving problems

(3) Projection of changes in social environment and customer requirements and future plans based on these projected changes

(4) Relationships among management philosophy, vision and long-term plans

(5) Continuity of quality control activities

(6) Concreteness of future plans