As a part of quality improvement efforts, companies should measure their progress. The measurement can be by customer or employee survey and this could help to monitor process improvement, but criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of overall quality process are necessary.
The aim of the award was to promote quality awareness and its impact on competitiveness, share information on successful quality strategies and the benefits derived from implementing these strategies, and proposes a set of criteria that can be used by business, industry, government and other enterprises in evaluating their own quality improvement efforts. Moreover, Baldrige’s criteria are grouped into four basic elements: driver, system, measures of progress, results and goal.
Companies are awarded the Baldrige National Quality Program for Performance Excellence, when they successfully implement the Baldrige model. This model helps organisations to improve their capabilities, performance practices, and results. Communication is facilitated by sharing the information on best practices around in the industry. This serves as a tool for guiding, understanding and managing performance and for planning opportunities for learning. The
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Baldrige Award criteria are built on the following set of interrelated core values and concepts (NIST, 2003):
i. Visionary leadership;
ii. Customer-driven excellence;
iii. Organisational and personal learning;
iv. Valuing employees and partners;
v. Agility;
vi. Focus on the future;
vii. Managing for innovation;
viii. Management by fact;
ix. Social responsibility;
x. Focus on result and creating value; and, xi. Systems perspective.
These are embodied in seven categories which are used to assess organizations. The framework that connects and integrates these categories as shown in Figure (3.5).
i. The leadership category: this examines how the senior executives create a clear quality value system to guide all company activities.
ii. The strategic planning category: this examines how the company sets strategic directions, how it determines key action plans, and then to translates them into an effective performance management system.
iii. The customer and market focus category: this examines how the company determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets. Also determine their satisfaction.
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iv. The information and analysis category: this examines the management and effectiveness of the use of data to support key company processes and performance management systems.
v. The human resource development and management category: this examines how the workforce is enabled to develop and utilize its full potential with the company's objectives.
vi. The process management category: this examines the key aspects of process management, including customer-focused design, product, and service delivery processes, support processes, and supplier and partnering processes involving all work units.
vii. The business results category: this examines the company's performance and improvement in key business areas including customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace, performance, human resources, supplier and partner performance, and operational performance.
Figure 3.5: Baldrige Model
Source: Oakland and Marosszeky (2006)
Customer & market focused strategy and action plans
Strategic 2 planning
Human 5 resource focus
Information and analysis 4
Business 7 results
Customer & 3 market
Process 6 management Leadership 1
115 3.11.2.2 European quality award
In the 1990s, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) launched the European Quality Award, which is the most prestigious award for organizational excellence and is the top level of the (EFQM) levels of excellence. The award includes a separate category for organizations in the public sector, and for factories, sales and research units. This framework was the first one to include 'Business Results' and really to present the whole business model.
Similar to the Baldrige award in the US, the European Quality Award in Europe is designed to increase the awareness throughout the European Community, in business in particular, of the growing importance of quality to their competitiveness in the increasingly global market and to their standard of living (Evans and Lindsay, 2001). Moreover, the EFQM Model emphasizes that it is to be recognized that process is the approach by which an organization harnesses and releases the talents of its people to produce the desired performance. In addition to this, improvement in performance can be achieved by improving processes and this can be brought about by involving the people. The simple model is that people improve performance by means of good processes is shown in Figure (3.6). Achieve better performance through involvement of all employees (people) in continuous improvement of their processes.
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Figure 3.6: The Simple Model to Improve Performance Source: Oakland and Marosszeky (2006)
According to Dubas and Nihawan (2005), the European foundation quality Model (EFQM) Excellence Model is a non- prescriptive framework based on nine criteria. Five of these are
‘Enablers’ and four are ‘Results’. The enablers’ criteria cover what an organization does. The Result criteria cover what an organization achieves. Results are caused by Enablers and feedbacks from Results help to improve Enablers. It contains a set of nine weighted criteria that are utilized in the assessment process. The model is based on the premise that : Excellent results with respect to performance, customers, people and society are achieved through leadership driving policy and strategy, that is delivered through people partnerships and Resources, and Processes.
Leadership driven policy and strategy are necessary to aid customer, employee and favourable society results, and besides these people partnerships, resources and processes are directed towards ultimate excellence in key performance results. The delivery of these results enables the drive towards innovation and learning. The EFQM Excellence Model is depicted below in Figure 3.7
People Performance
P R O C E S S
117 Figure 3.7: The EFQM Excellence Model Source: Oakland and Marosszeky (2006)
The EFQM publication for the new millennium of the so-called 'Excellence Model' captures much of the learning and provides a framework which organisation can use by following these ten steps:
a) Set direction through leadership;
b) Establish the results they want to achieve;
c) Establish and drive policy and strategy ;
d) Set up and manage appropriately their approach to processes, people, partnerships and resources;
e) Deploy the approaches to ensure achievement of the policies, strategies and thereby the results;