Six Sigma And Baldrige Criteria Programs Analysis

Six Sigma and Baldrige Criteria programs analysis

1.0 Baldrige Criteria and Six Sigma Overview

1. Baldrige Criteria

1. Background

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, named after Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary of Commerce for President Reagan, was born in the mid-1980 as a strategy to encourage U.S organizations and companies to improve their Quality Management processto be able to compete in the demanding global market that was continuously changing and expanding. The idea was to survive to a crisis in the U.S competitiveness where Japanese companies were the competitor that was increasing its market share by using a quality improvement system developed by W. Edwards Deming. 5

In 1987, the U.S Congress created the award to recognize those companies thatcontinuously assess their practices, create improvements plans and implement the best alternatives to became leaders in terms of quality, responsiveness, lean, quality and customer-focus. Congress created the Award Program to:

• Identify and recognize worth to imitate companies
• Create standards to evaluate performance
• Motivate companies to improve quality and productivity
•Recognize accomplishments in improving quality of goods and services




The program since its beginning has succeeded in raising awareness about the importance of quality and performance excellence as a competitive edge. By now, thousands of organizations have benefited from the self-assessment criteria process that the Baldrige program offers. According to the National Institute ofStandards and Technology (NSIT), two million copies of the application or criteria process have been distributed, not counting reproductions and free electronic access via the Web http://www.nist.gov.



2. Description

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence defines a complete set of processes that organizations should follow to improve their performance pursuing best-in-classlevels of performance. However, the Criteria don’t tell an organization how to do something; it tells what it should be doing. The organization is in charge of determining the processes that best fit their business.

The Criteria work with a straightforward set of questions that cover vital aspects of management to achieve performance excellence. The categories are as follow:

• Leadership: howtop management directs the organization
• Strategic planning: strategies for short and long term and plans implementation
• Customer focus: identification of customer requirements
• Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management: use of the data for decision making.
• Workforce focus: employees’ empowerment and team work.
• Operations focus: assessment of managerial principles andimprovement techniques.
• Results: overall operational results based on the previous categories.

3. Core Values
The Core Values of the Baldrige criteria includes: The core values and concepts are: visionary leadership, customer-driven excellence, organizational and personal learning, valuing employees and partners, agility, focus on the future managing for innovation, managing forfact, public responsibility and citizenship, focus on results and creating value and systems perspective. 2

4. Strengths
• The reports need to be completed by trained and skilled personnel that will provide feedback regarding the organization strength and opportunnities.
• System thinking: the assessment is to determine the overall organizational performance and capabilities.• The process of self-assessment is meticulous and systematic, making the organizations to see their health, their own good and bad practices. Organizations can see their degree of maturity as well as their effectiveness. This also results in more engaged employees.
• Learning experience: organizations are continuously learning during the process of identifying their performance...