TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter discusses the most famous and widely used frameworks for self-assessment in the West; the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (BNQA) in the USA and the European/UK Business Excellence Award.
The MBNQ criteria are built on a set of core values and concepts which are embodied on a framework of seven first level categories: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analyses, human resource development, process management, and business results. These are comparable with the categories of the Japanese Deming Prize, and the nine components of the European Excellence Award: leadership driving policy and strategy through management of people, processes and resources and partnerships, delivering superior people results, customer results and societal results, which in turn lead to better key performance results. The various award criteria provide rational bases against which to measure progress towards excellence in organizations and the so-called self-assessment methods currently in use are explained.
It is shown how the motors driving an organization towards its mission must be linked to its five stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers (determinants) and shareholders, community (resultants).
Organizations everywhere are under constant pressure to improve their business performance, measure themselves against world class standards and focus their efforts on the customer. To help in this process, many are turning to total quality models such as the European Foundation for Quality Management s (EFQM) Excellence Model promoted in the UK by the British Quality Foundation.
Total quality is the goal of many organizations but it...
