Jean Nabert: una presencia subterránea en la reflexión francesa Entre los filósofos franceses de este siglo, Jean Nabert no es el

This section looks at three widely used benchmarking models. The benchmarking models were considered in this review as they have been extensively used across the globe as an alternative to methodologies such as lean and TQM to embed CI cultures. Benchmarking models use periodic auditing to embed CI cultures whereas methodologies such as lean and TQM focus on culture change through ongoing learning. The benchmarking models encourage organisations to benchmark their current status of operation and form a strategy for improvement. Organisations repeat the benchmarking process after a fixed length of time to measure progress and form fresh strategies for further improvements. This process of repeatedly benchmarking and forming strategies for improvements is aimed at embedding a culture of CI. This section compares and contrasts the Deming Prize, the Malcolm Baldridge National Award (MBNA), and the European Quality Award (EQA).

1.11.1 European Quality Award

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) was founded by 14 of the leading Western European businesses in 1988 when many of the major companies in Europe had realized that their only way of surviving in business was to pay much greater attention to quality (Tummala and Tang 1996). The EFQM established the EQA) in 1992, mainly to accelerate the acceptance of quality as a strategy for global competitive advantage, to stimulate and assess the development of quality improvement activities, and to recognize the companies in Western Europe that demonstrate excellence in the management of quality as their fundamental process for CI (Bohoris 1995). The assessment criterion has nine categories that are divided into two groups - the results and the enablers.

o _{Enablers: leadership, policy and strategy, people (employee) management,}

resources, processes.

o _{Results: customer satisfaction, people (employee) satisfaction, impact on}

society, business results.

The award assesses how the customer and people satisfaction, impact on society, and business results are being achieved through leadership, people management, policy and strategy, resources and processes.

1.11.2 The Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award

The MBNQA was established in 1987 as a standard of excellence that would help US organisations achieve world-class quality. The award promotes three important characteristics, namely, awareness of quality to increase competitiveness, understanding the requirements for excellence in quality, and sharing the information and benefits derived from successful quality strategies that are employed by the companies (Tummala and Tang 1996). Seven categories of criteria are included in evaluating the company’s overall strategic and operational strategies employed in implementing quality improvement efforts. These are:

o _Leadership

o Information and analysis

o Strategic quality planning

o Human resource development and management

o Management of process quality

o _{Quality and operational results} o Customer focus and satisfaction

1.11.3 The Deming Prize

The Deming Prize was established by the board of directors of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) in 1951. The primary purpose of the Deming Prize is to find out how well a company achieves quality improvement, productivity improvement, cost reduction, expanded sales, increased profits, etc, from the implementation of total quality control based on statistical quality control techniques. The Deming Prize is based mainly on the process rather than the business results. The Deming Prize has a checklist containing ten primary factors. The primary factors are further divided into a minimum of four and a maximum of 11 secondary factors.

The primary factors are:

o _Policies

o _{The organisation and its operations} o Education and dissemination

o _{Information gathering, communication and its utilization} o Analysis

o _Control

o _{Quality assurance} o _Effects

o _{Future plans}

1.11.4 Comparing and contrasting the benchmarking models

The models discussed in this section have been analysed in Table 4 to determine the commonalities and dissimilarities between them. These models were also compared and contrasted with the sustainability models to see how well they align. The principles discussed in each model were grouped under the same five categories of management, culture, tools and technologies, strategy and business processes as the sustainability models. Breaking the models down into these five categories helped pinpoint the key themes within each model and made it easier to compare and contrast the commonalities and differences between them.

Table 4 shows that there are many commonalities and some dissimilarity between the models. These are as follows:

o _{All models cover the strategy and business process themes.}

o _{All models focus on business results and effects.}

o _{The Deming Prize does not cover the leadership and culture themes.}

o _{The MBNQA does not discuss tools & technology.}

Overall, the three models proved to be quite similar in their recommendations. The gap that existed between them was considered minor and was not investigated further. Although there are some variations between the models the overall aim of these models is to embed a culture of CI through benchmarking.

Table 4: Analysis of the benchmarking models

Categories EQA MBNQA Deming Prize

Management Leadership Leadership

Strategy Policy & Strategy Strategic Planning Policies

Education & Dissemination Future plans

Culture People Management

People Satisfaction Impact on Society Workforce Focus Business Processes Processes Customer Satisfaction

Customer & Market Focus Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management Process Management Quality Assurance Analysis Information

The organisation and its operations

Tools & technologies Resources Control

Standardisation

Other Business Results Results Effects