Sector
Acknowledging Innovative Excellence – The City of Irving, Texas
It’s not every year that a city wins the Mac Baldrige Award; in fact, Irving is only the second to have ever done it. Part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Irving contains Las Colinas, one of the first master-planned developments in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Airport also falls within its 68 square miles. The city is over a hundred years old, but didn’t see much growth until the manufacturing, transportation, and finance industries moved in during the 1930s, opening the doors for huge organizations like Citigroup, Verizon, Nokia, Allstate, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, ExxonMobil, and Kimberly-Clark. In 2011, Irving was awarded the Texas Award for Performance Excellence, qualifying it for the big B.
So, how did they do it? Mayor Beth Van Duyne reached out for some extra help. Freese and Nichols, Inc. is a multi-discipline consulting firm that offers services in engineering, architecture, environmental science, planning, construction services, and program management. It doesn’t hurt that they are 2010 Baldrige Award recipients, and based out of Fort Worth, Texas. Freese and Nichols worked with Irving through their initial processes, helped review Irving’s application, practice for site visits, and did mock interviews with innumerable staff members in an effort to help make everyone on the city payroll to become more comfortable with the Baldrige Criteria. In addition, they shared best practices, and considering that F&N received the National and Tarrant …
26Feb2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | Continued
Loyola, Baldrige, and Six Sigma: An MBA Program Designed with Today’s Business in Mind
Loyola University has just announced that their Fall 2013 MBA curriculum will not only follow the Baldrige criteria framework, but also incorporates Six Sigma training and certification. Through partnership with the American Society for Quality (ASQ), Loyola students will have the opportunity to work on real performance improvement projects and project management certifications.
“Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology that is used by most of the top companies in the country for controlling variation and reducing costs. It’s a highly prized, internationally recognized standard,” said Jerry Goolsby, Ph.D., M.B.A., director of graduate programs for the College of Business.
According to a press release from the University, recent Loyola MBA grads have gone on to work in advanced professional positions at companies like General Electric, General Motors, Symetra, and Shell.
Loyola has been incorporating the Baldrige criteria into their curriculum for the past few years, but have been fine-tuning the coursework along the way. To expose students to the realities of the corporate world, the school offers an Executive Mentor Program for MBA students, which matches a small group of students to a successful area business executive. Shadowing business trips, discussing time management, personal finance, goal setting, and communication skills, as well as networking with the local business community are just some of the benefits students can absorb from this program.
In addition to the expansion of …
6Feb2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 1 comment | ContinuedManaging Data in Healthcare
Most hospitals face similar challenges as they upgrade their paper-based record systems to electronic medical records (EMRs), and those challenges tend to center around managing change within the organization as the ways and means that information is recorded evolves. Hospitals move very fast, and those that get used to the hectic pace of things aren’t very fond of change as it has the potential to initially create chaos, even if there is a promise of increased simplicity, usability, and accuracy.
Within the Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management section of the Baldrige criteria, applicants are asked how they make needed data and information available to the workforce, suppliers, partners, collaborators, and customers, as appropriate. To address the reluctance that many healthcare organizations have over switching to an electronic system, some EMR vendors have resorted to very interesting tactics in order to woo these potential customers.
Athenahealth is a very popular EMR and data management platform used by hospitals, which has recently made the news for the purchase of Epocrates, a startup whose mobile application provides drug reference advice to healthcare providers. Epocrates pioneered the development of what has been widely recognized as the most popular point-of-care medical application among U.S. physicians, providing vast swaths of data regarding pharmaceutical usage and interaction at the touch of a finger. Together, these two giants will manage data and information for hospitals and healthcare …
24Jan2013 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedNorth Mississippi Health Services receives Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
Perhaps best known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, Tupelo, Mississippi is situated in the northeast corner of the state, about halfway between Memphis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama. However, there is something else in Tupelo that helping to keep up appearances these days, and that’s North Mississippi Health Services (NMHS). NMHS is a 650-bed referral center that holds the distinction of being the largest, private, not-for-profit hospital in Mississippi, and the largest non-metropolitan hospital in America. The center helps more than 700,000 people in 24 area counties.
Back in 2006, North Mississippi Medical Center received the Award as the flagship hospital of the NMHS system, which consists of five additional facilities. NMHS has not been slacking since then, and has been awarded yet another Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for their outstanding work in 2012.
An exceptionally strong focus on high standards results in better health outcomes. At North Mississippi Health Services, patient safety has led to zero central line-associated blood stream infections in its intensive care unit for two years. Slips, trips, and falls are below the National Database for Nursing Quality Indicators mean for both inpatient and long-term care settings across the system in fiscal year 2012. One facet of NMHS’ initiative is the “Ideas for Excellence” program, which is not dissimilar to what some of the big tech companies do with their employees to encourage innovation. Improvement …
3Dec2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedLockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control win 2012 Baldrige Award
To date, more than 1,500 American organizations have applied for the Baldrige Award, and 93 organizations have received it. There are quality award programs in nearly every state that model themselves after the Baldrige criteria, and nearly 100 international programs that have done the same. A 2011 study estimated that Baldrige program’s benefit-to-cost ratio to U.S. businesses was 820:1. For the first time, Baldrige Award applicants were required to have previously received their state’s performance excellence award.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) designs, develops, manufactures, and supports advanced combat, missile, rocket, and sensor systems for the U.S. and foreign military. MFC is headquartered in Grand Prarie, Texas, and employs over 10,000 people producing more than 100 products in over 60 countries. The company is Lockheed Martin’s lead business for research, development, and protection of electro-optical and smart munitions systems. Lockheed Martin’s corporate net sales for 2011 were $46.5 billion.
This year, they have been honored with receiving the Baldrige Award. Some highlights from their award application have been selected below:
- ROI has grown at a 23% compound annual rate, faster than the industry-best competitor at 13.7%.
- From 2006 to 2011, annual orders from repeat customers have increased by 32% and international orders have increased by almost 400%.
- In 2011, close to 85% of employees said that they were proud to work for MFC, exceeding the national benchmark
…
Post University Honors Malcolm Baldrige
SOURCE: Post University
Post University honored former Waterbury business leader and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige at an event at Waterbury City Hall on Wednesday, October 17th. The event celebrated the naming of The Malcolm Baldrige School of Business at Post University. More than 100 guests honored “Mac,” including his daughter Molly Baldrige. An oil painting of the honoree, which will hang in Post University’s Traurig Library, was unveiled.
Dr. Thomas Samph, President and CEO of Post University had this to say on Wednesday evening: “We are deeply honored that the Baldrige family has have granted us permission to extend Malcolm Baldrige’s legacy in this way. Like Baldrige’s impact on the international business community, the reach of our ideas and commitment to business excellence extends far beyond our Waterbury campus to nearly every corner of the world. And similar to the way Baldrige changed the way people think about business, we want to change the way people think about higher education. It’s something we are very passionate about because we know our future, the future of Waterbury and the future of our nation as a whole depends on a steadfast commitment to innovation, continuous improvement, quality and ethical leadership.”
Dr. Don Mroz, Provost of Post University and Dean of The Malcolm Baldrige School of Business was also very enthusiastic about the opportunities and responsibilities that lay ahead: “As someone …
25Oct2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedCoalition Developed to Train U.S. Veterans for Jobs in Advanced Manufacturing
In the 2011 Skills Gap Report produced by The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, over 80% of manufacturers report they cannot find people to fill their skilled production jobs. As a result, there are approximately 600,000 manufacturing jobs open right now in the United States. Manufacturers need a talented pipeline, but they also need the Right Skills Now.
The Manufacturing Institute, in response to this issue, has teamed up with General Electric, Boeing (Baldrige Award recipients in 1998 and 2003), Lockheed Martin, Alcoa, and other business, digital, academic, and not-for-profit partners to launch an endeavor to train military veterans for specific jobs in advanced manufacturing, in essence augmenting America’s competitiveness. This is a skills-match program that will combine the efforts of a company called Futures, Inc., which has created a digital “badge” system that easily translates the Military Occupational Specialty codes (MOS) to identify best-fit civilian positions in advanced manufacturing. In the past, most companies did not have an easy way of understanding the equivalence of an MOS to the skills and abilities needed in civilian jobs. For example, veterans that have advanced training in welding and machining can now be easily identified by their MOS using the system designed by Futures. This is a great step forward for the hundreds of thousands of veterans looking for work in this country, even if they do not quite possess the right …
17Oct2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | Continued
