Malcolm Baldrige Award
Malcolm Baldrige Award refers to the highest level of recognition that a US company can receive in terms of performance. It is the only formal body, which recognizes excellence in performance by US companies in private and public sectors. The president of the US gives the award to the best performing company in terms of quality performance annually.
The organizations that qualify for the award cut across Education sector, Manufacturing Health Care non-profit making and business related organizations. Maureen and Gruska state that “The Congress established the award in 1987 under the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987, named after Malcom Baldrige who was the US Secretary of Commerce” (2005).
The establishment of the award was to give recognition to those companies that showed great performance and achievement in quality business practices.
The establishment of the award was to create awareness on quality of goods, services and performance excellence to promote competitive advantage among organizations.
Therefore, it refers to a customer-focused agent aiming at achieving productivity, financial and market outcomes, competitiveness, good governance and leadership, product and services outcomes, as well as the quality of US firms for the good of all citizens (Maureen and Gruska 2005).
Criteria for getting Malcolm Baldrige award
The award identifies organizations that act as role models for other firms. It helps firms to identify improvement efforts, identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and to identify their management information systems for improvement.
Organizations have to apply for the award and for an organization to get the award; it must meet the performance criteria established. Companies must apply for the award and pay a nonrefundable fee. The assessment of the companies is based on its focus and attention to customers, internal processes, employee satisfaction, and leadership among other factors (Maureen and Gruska 2005).
The history of Malcolm Baldrige award
In the 1980s, the US government and industry sectors came up with the idea of having quality control measures expanded to the competitive market. Regardless of this, most of the businesses did not care about quality.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award became the law on August, 20, 1987; it aimed to be the standard of measure of excellence that would propel US organizations to become excellent companies.
At the end of 1987, Dr. Riemann and his staff in NIST came up with an award framework with a scheme of evaluation, which is now called the Baldrige Award. The award expanded to healthcare and education fields in 1998, and in 2005 to nonprofit sector (Maureen and Gruska 2005).
Malcolm Baldrige award recipients (companies)
Bibliography
Maureen, Heaphy, and Gruska, Fredrick. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: a yardstick for quality growth. New York: Addison-Wesley, 2005. Print.