| Baldrige Process News November 25, 2003 President and Commerce Secretary Announce Recipients of Nation’s Highest Honor in Quality and Performance Excellence President George W. Bush and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans today announced seven organizations as recipients of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest honor for quality and performance excellence. This is the most Baldrige Award recipients since the program started in 1988 and the first time that recipients were named in all five Baldrige Award categories. The 2003 Baldrige Award recipients are: For a complete description of these role model organizations, view the official press release. Did you know that every year about 400 people from almost every state; from businesses, schools, hospitals, other health care organizations, and government volunteer days and weeks of their time to evaluate Baldrige Award applicants? Take a look at the current Board of Examiners list . Judges' Meeting September 18, 2003
The Panel of Judges met on September 18, 2003 to select the organizations that will move forward in the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award process. Of the 35 organizations, 13 will receive site visits by teams of Examiners. The group is comprised of two education and three health care organizations, three manufacturing and three service companies, and two small businesses. Judges' Meeting July 31, 2003
The Panel of Judges met on July 31, 2003 to select the organizations that will move forward in the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award process. Of the 68 organizations that applied, 35 will receive additional evaluations by teams of Examiners. The group is comprised of seven education and 12 health care organizations, six manufacturing and seven service companies, and three small businesses. |
Frequently Asked Questions about the
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
Who was Malcolm Baldrige?
Malcolm Baldrige was Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until his death in a rodeo accident in July 1987. Baldrige was a proponent of quality management as a key to this country’s prosperity and long-term strength. He took a personal interest in the quality improvement act that was eventually named after him and helped draft one of the early versions. In recognition of his contributions, Congress named the award in his honor.
What is the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award?
The Baldrige Award is given by the President of the United States to businesses—manufacturing and service, small and large—and to education and health care organizations that apply and are judged to be outstanding in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results.
Congress established the award program in 1987 to recognize U.S. organizations for their achievements in quality and performance and to raise awareness about the importance of quality and performance excellence as a competitive edge. The award is not given for specific products or services. Three awards may be given annually in each of these categories: manufacturing, service, small business and, starting in 1999, education and health care.
While the Baldrige Award and the Baldrige recipients are the very visible centerpiece of the U.S. quality movement, a broader national quality program has evolved around the award and its criteria. A report, Building on Baldrige: American Quality for the 21st Century, by the private Council on Competitiveness, said, “More than any other program, the Baldrige Quality Award is responsible for making quality a national priority and disseminating best practices across the United States.”
The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) manages the Baldrige National Quality Program in close cooperation with the private sector.
Why was the award established?
In the early and mid-1980s, many industry and government leaders saw that a renewed emphasis on quality was no longer an option for American companies but a necessity for doing business in an ever expanding, and more demanding, competitive world market. But many American businesses either did not believe quality mattered for them or did not know where to begin. The Baldrige Award was envisioned as a standard of excellence that would help U.S. organizations achieve world-class quality.
How is the Baldrige Award achieving its goals?
The criteria for the Baldrige Award have played a major role in achieving the goals established by Congress. They now are accepted widely, not only in the United States but also around the world, as the standard for performance excellence. The criteria are designed to help organizations enhance their competitiveness by focusing on two goals: delivering ever improving value to customers and improving overall organizational performance.
The award program has proven to be a remarkably successful government and private-sector team effort. The annual government investment of about $5 million is leveraged by a contribution of over $100 million from private-sector and state and local organizations, including $10 million raised by private industry to help launch the program and the time and efforts of hundreds of largely private-sector volunteers.
The cooperative nature of this joint government/private-sector team is perhaps best captured by the award’s Board of Examiners. Each year, more than 300 experts from industry, educational institutions, governments at all levels, and non-profit organizations volunteer many hours reviewing applications for the award, conducting site visits, and providing each applicant with an extensive feedback report citing strengths and opportunities to improve. In addition, board members have given thousands of presentations on quality management, performance improvement, and the Baldrige Award.
The Baldrige Award winners also have taken seriously their charge to be quality advocates. Their efforts to educate and inform other companies and organizations on the benefits of using the Baldrige Award framework and criteria have far exceeded expectations. To date, the recipients have given more than 30,000 presentations reaching thousands of organizations.
What are the Baldrige criteria?
The Baldrige performance excellence criteria are a framework that any organization can use to improve overall performance. Seven categories make up the award criteria:
Leadership—Examines how senior executives guide the organization and how the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship.
Strategic planning—Examines how the organization sets strategic directions and how it determines key action plans.
Customer and market focus—Examines how the organization determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets; builds relationships with customers; and acquires, satisfies, and retains customers.
Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management—Examines the management, effective use, analysis, and improvement of data and information to support key organization processes and the organization’s performance management system.
Human resource focus—Examines how the organization enables its workforce to develop its full potential and how the workforce is aligned with the organization’s objectives.
Process management—Examines aspects of how key production/delivery and support processes are designed, managed, and improved.
Business results—Examines the organization’s performance and improvement in its key business areas: customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resources, supplier and partner performance, operational performance, and governance and social responsibility. The category also examines how the organization performs relative to competitors.
The criteria are used by thousands of organizations of all kinds for self-assessment and training and as a tool to develop performance and business processes. Several million copies have been distributed since the first edition in 1988, and heavy reproduction and electronic access multiply that number many times.
For many organizations, using the criteria results in better employee relations, higher productivity, greater customer satisfaction, increased market share, and improved profitability. According to a report by the Conference Board, a business membership organization, “A majority of large U.S. firms have used the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for self-improvement, and the evidence suggests a long-term link between use of the Baldrige criteria and improved business performance.”
Which organizations have received the award?
- 2003—Medrad, Inc., Boeing Aerospace Support, Caterpillar Financial Services Corp., Stoner Inc., Community Consolidated School District 15, Baptist Hospital, Inc., and Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City
- 2002—Motorola Inc. Commercial, Government and Industrial Solutions Sector, Branch Smith Printing Division, and SSM Health Care
- 2001—Clarke American Checks, Incorporated, Pal’s Sudden Service, Chugach School District, Pearl River School District, and University of Wisconsin-Stout
- 2000—Dana Corp.-Spicer Driveshaft Division, KARLEE Company, Inc., Operations Management International, Inc., and Los Alamos National Bank
- 1999—STMicroelectronics, Inc.-Region Americas, BI, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., L.L.C., and Sunny Fresh Foods
- 1998—Boeing Airlift and Tanker Programs, Solar Turbines Inc., and Texas Nameplate Co., Inc.
- 1997—3M Dental Products Division, Solectron Corp., Merrill Lynch Credit Corp., and Xerox Business Services
- 1996—ADAC Laboratories, Dana Commercial Credit Corp., Custom Research Inc., and Trident Precision Manufacturing Inc.
- 1995—Armstrong World Industries Building Products Operation and Corning Telecommunications Products Division
- 1994—AT&T Consumer Communications Services, GTE Directories Corp., and Wainwright Industries Inc.
- 1993—Eastman Chemical Co. and Ames Rubber Corp.
- 1992—AT&T Network Systems Group/ Transmission Systems Business Unit, Texas Instruments Inc. Defense Systems & Electronics Group, AT&T Universal Card Services, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., and Granite Rock Co.
- 1991—Solectron Corp., Zytec Corp., and Marlow Industries
- 1990—Cadillac Motor Car Division, IBM Rochester, Federal Express Corp., and Wallace Co. Inc.
- 1989—Milliken & Co. and Xerox Corp. Business Products and Systems
- 1988—Motorola Inc., Commercial Nuclear Fuel Division of Westinghouse Electric Corp., and Globe Metallurgical Inc.
When were the education and health care categories established?
Both categories were introduced in 1999. Since then, a total of 66 applications have been submitted in the education category and 61 in the health care category.
Any for-profit or not-for-profit public or private organization that provides educational or health care services in the United States or its territories is eligible to apply for the award. That includes elementary and secondary schools and school districts; colleges, universities, and university systems; schools or colleges within a university; professional schools; community colleges; technical schools; and charter schools. In health care, it includes hospitals, HMOs, long-term-care facilities, health care practitioner offices, home health agencies, health insurance companies, or medical/dental laboratories.
As in the other three categories, applicants must show achievements and improvements in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus (for education: student, stakeholder, and market focus; for health care: focus on patients, other customers, and markets); information and analysis; human resource focus (for education: faculty and staff focus; for health care: staff focus); process management; and business results (for both education and health care: organizational performance results).
