The United States national quality award originated from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act (Public Law 100-107), signed by President Ronald Reagan on August 20, 1987. That act, named after a former Secretary of Commerce, called for the creation of a national quality award and the development of guidelines and criteria that organizations could use to evaluate their quality improvement efforts. Awards are given in the five categories below, with no more than two awards being presented per category per year.
• Manufacturing • Service
• Small Business
• Educational Organizations • Health Care Organizations
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The U.S. Department of Commerce is responsible for the MBNQA and Program. The National Institute of Standards (NIST), an agency of the Department’s Technology Administration manages the Baldrige Program, as follows:
Board of Overseers
The Board of Overseers is appointed by the Secretary of Commerce and consists of distinguished leaders from all sectors of the U.S. economy. The Board oversees and evaluates all aspects of the Program, including the adequacy of the criteria and processes for determining Award recipients, and advises the Department of Commerce on the Baldrige Program. An important aspect of the Board’s responsibility is to assess how well the Program is serving the national interest.
Board of Examiners
The Board of Examiners evaluates Award applications and prepares feedback reports. The Panel of Judges, part of the Board of Examiners, makes Award recommendations to the Director of NIST.
Award Recipients
Award recipients are required to share information on their successful performance and their quality strategies with other U.S. organizations. However, recipients are not required to share proprietary information, even if such information was part of their Award application.
3-22 Version 6.2
2005 Award Criteria
The award criteria are built upon a set of interrelated core values and concepts. These values and beliefs are embedded behaviors found in high-performing organizations. The core values and concepts are shown in Figure 3-3 and embodied in the following seven categories. See Skill Category 2 for a description of the core values and concepts.
Figure 3-3. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Program
1 – Leadership
These criteria address the approach that the organization’s senior leaders take towards values, directions, and performance expectations, as well as how they focus on customers and other stakeholders, empowerment, innovation, and learning. Also examined is how the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and supports its communities.
2 – Strategic Planning
These criteria address how the organization develops strategic objectives and action plans. Also examined are how the objectives and plans are deployed and how progress is measured.
3 – Customer and Market Focus
These criteria address how the organization determines requirements, expectations, and preferences of customers and markets. Also examined is how the organization builds relationships with customers, and determines the key factors that lead to customer acquisition, satisfaction, and retention and to business expansion.
Quality Baselines
Version 6.2 3-23
4 – Information and Analysis
These criteria address the organization’s information management and performance measurement systems and how the organization analyzes performance data and information.
5 – Human Resources
These criteria address how the organization motivates and enables its employees to develop and utilize their full potential in alignment with the organization’s overall objectives and action plans. Also examined are the organization’s efforts to build and maintain a work environment and an employee support climate conducive to performance excellence and to personal and organizational growth.
6 – Process Management
These criteria address the key aspects of the organization’s process management, including customer-focused design, product and service delivery, primary business and support processes. It encompasses all key processes and all work units.
7 – Business Results
These criteria address the organization’s performance and improvement in key business areas, customer satisfaction, product and service performance, human resource results, financial and marketplace performance, and operational performance. Performance levels relative to those of competitors are also examined.
2005 Award Scoring System
The scoring responses to Award Criteria and Award applicant feedback are based on two evaluation dimensions: Process and Results. Criteria users need to furnish information relating to these dimensions. Specific factors for these dimensions are described below. The award criteria of 1,000 points are distributed as shown in Figure 3-4.
Figure 3-4. Current Baldrige Award Criteria Distribution
Category Points
Leadership 120
Strategic Planning 85 Customer & Market Focus 85 Information and Analysis 90 Human Resources Focus 85 Process Management 85 Business Results 450
3-24 Version 6.2
Process
Process refers to the methods your organization uses and improves to address the Item requirements in Categories 1-6. The four factors used to evaluate process are Approach, Deployment, Learning, and Integration (A-D-L-I).
“Approach” refers to:
• The methods used to accomplish the process
• The appropriateness of the methods to the Item requirements • The effectiveness of your use of the methods
• The degree to which the approach is repeatable and based on reliable data and infor- mation (i.e., systematic)
“Deployment” refers to the extent to which:
• Your approach is applied in addressing Item requirements relevant and important to your organization
• Your approach is applied consistently
• Your approach is used by all appropriate work units “Learning” refers to:
• Refining your approach through cycles of evaluation and improvement • Encouraging breakthrough change to your approach through innovation
• Sharing of refinements and innovation with other relevant work units and processes in your organization
“Integration” refers to the extent to which:
• Your approach is aligned with your organizational needs identified in other Criteria Item requirements
• Your measures, information, and improvement systems are complementary across processes and work units
• Your plans, processes, results, analyses, learning, and actions are harmonized across processes and work units to support organization-wide goals
“Results” refers to your organization’s outputs and outcomes in achieving the requirements in Category 7. The four factors used to evaluate results are:
Quality Baselines
Version 6.2 3-25
• Rate (i.e., slope of trend data) and breadth (i.e., how widely deployed and shared) of your performance improvements
• Your performance relative to appropriate comparisons and/or benchmarks • Linkage of your results measures (often through segmentation) to important cus-
tomer, product and service, market, process, and action plan performance require- ments identified in your Organizational Profile and in Process Items.
The Application Review Process
• Each applicant receives a feedback report at the conclusion of the review process. The feedback report is written by an evaluation team and contains an applicant-spe- cific listing of strengths and opportunities for improvement based on the Award Cri- teria. The following four stages constitute the review process:
• An independent review by at least five members of the board. • A consensus review for applications that score well in Stage 1. • Site visits to applicants who score well in Stage 2.
• Judge’s review and recommendations of award recipients.
Other National and Regional Awards
Other countries and regions have also created quality awards. These use similar categories and variations of the scoring methods used by the MBNQA. The Deming Prize is awarded in Japan; there are also the European Quality Awards and the Australian Quality Award in their respective regions.
ISO 9001:2000
The ISO 9000 family of standards contains 3 standards and many supporting documents. Under ISO protocols, all standards must be reviewed at least every five years to determine whether they should be confirmed, revised, or withdrawn.
In 1997, ISO conducted a large global survey to better understand their needs. This survey revealed the need to substantially re-engineer the model itself, with an emphasis on four needs:
• A common structure based upon a Process Model
• Promote use of continuous improvement and prevention of non-conformity
• Simplicity of use, ease of understanding, and use of clear language and terminology • Consistency with the Plan-Do-Check-Act improvement cycle
3-26 Version 6.2 In 2000, the ISO 9000 family of standards integrated the five 1994 Standards into four primary documents as follows:
• ISO 9000 – Gives an introduction and a guide to using the other standards in the 9000 family.
• ISO 9001 – Describes a quality system model, including quality system require- ments applicable to organizations that design, develop, produce, install and service products.
• ISO 9004 – Helps companies implement quality systems. These are supported by the following Standard:
• ISO 10011 – Includes guidelines for auditing quality systems.
For those interested in applying ISO 9001:2000 to Software the following will be useful;
• ISO/IEC 90003:2004 Software Engineering – Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001:2000 to computer software
Model Overview
The ISO 9001:2000 standards are based on the following eight quality management principles.
1. Customer Focus
2. Leadership
3. Involvement of People
4. Process Approach
5. System Approach to Management
6. Continuous Improvement
7. Factual Approach to Decision-Making
8. Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships
Figure 3-5 shows the process model, which conceptually presents the quality management system requirements.
The model graphically reflects the integration of the four ISO 9001 clauses (discussed below). As it is a model of the complete quality system processes, it is capable of demonstrating the vertical and horizontal process integration in a closed loop manner.
Quality Baselines
Version 6.2 3-27
The process model is not intended to reflect processes at the detailed level. However, quality management system requirements for achieving product or service conformity may be placed within the model. A domain model such as CMMI®, a process reference model such as defined in
ISO/IEC 12207, or a process model derived from good practices such as in the ITIL® may be easily
inserted into the Product Realization Clause of ISO 9001:2000.
Figure 3-5. Quality Management Process Model
The following major clauses comprise the ISO 9001 standard. Sub-clauses are also noted in the description.
Management Responsibility
Management Responsibility includes these sub-clauses: Management Commitment, Customer Focus, Quality Policy, Planning, Administration, and Management Review. Customer Focus is an integral process within the quality management system.
Top management shall demonstrate that customer needs and expectations have been determined and translated into applicable customer requirements. Top management shall also demonstrate its commitment to meeting customer requirements for their product or service by:
• Creating an environment for awareness and fulfillment of customer requirements • Establishing the quality policy and quality objectives
3-28 Version 6.2 • Performing management reviews
• Ensuring the availability of necessary resources
Resource Management
Resource Management includes these sub-clauses: Provision of Resources, Human Resources, Facilities, and Work Environment.
The organization shall determine and provide the resources needed to establish and improve the quality management system. This includes, but is not limited to:
• Human resources, such as assignment of personnel, training, qualification, and competence
• Other resources, such as information, infrastructure, and work environment
Product Realization
Product Realization includes these sub-clauses: Planning of Realization Process, Customer-related Processes, Design, Development, Purchasing, Production & Service Operations, and Control of Measuring & Monitoring Devices. It is this Clause into which the chosen domain model should be inserted.
The organization shall determine which processes are required to satisfy customer requirements. The sequence and interaction of these processes shall be determined, planned and controlled to ensure they operate efficiently.
The organization shall ensure that these processes are operated under controlled conditions and produce outputs that are consistent with the organization’s policy and objectives. For all of these processes, the organization shall:
• Determine how each process influences the ability to meet product or service requirements
• Establish methods and practices relevant to process activities, to the extent neces- sary to achieve consistent operation of the process
• Verify processes can be operated to achieve product or service conformity
• Determine and implement the criteria and methods to control processes related to the achievement of product or service conformity
• Determine and implement arrangements for measurement, monitoring, and follow- up actions to ensure processes operate effectively
• Ensure the availability of process documentation that provides operating criteria and information to support the operation and monitoring of processes
Quality Baselines
Version 6.2 3-29
With regards to the customer-related processes, the organization shall establish a process for identifying customer requirements. The process shall consider:
• Identification of customer requirements • Review of customer requirements
• Review of the ability to meet defined requirements • Customer communication
• Customer property (physical property, intellectual property, etc.)
Measurement, Analysis and Improvement
Measurement, Analysis and Improvement includes these sub-clauses: Planning, Measuring & Monitoring, Control of Nonconformity, Analysis of Data, and Improvement.
The organization shall define and implement measurement, analysis, and improvement processes as a way of demonstrating that the product or service conforms to specified requirements. This includes:
• Measurement of system performance • Measurement of customer satisfaction • Internal auditing
• Measurement of processes and product conformity, internal improvements • Measurement of product and/or service
• Control of measuring, inspection and test equipment
• Analysis of data to view operation trends, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the quality management system, customer satisfaction, and conformance to customer requirements
• Improvement by implementing corrective and preventive action