Galvin helped launch the Baldrige program. Under his leadership, Motorola had become a global quality leader. Six Sigma became a systematic approach to quality improvement at Motorola, where Galvin notoriously demanded 10x improvements in quality and cycle time from one year to the next. In a Financial Executive report, he bragged that “we hardly take a serious interest in less than a 50% improvement” in cycle time. To make his point, he described a Motorola pager that had taken 44 days to make to customer specifications that, through quality and cycle time improvements, was being delivered in less than two hours.

He took these improvements personally. I interviewed him at his office in Schaumberg, Illinois, in 1991 for my first Baldrige book. He talked about lobbying for a national quality award, Motorola receiving one of the first Baldrige Awards given in 1988, and serving on the Baldrige Board of Overseers. But his eyes really lit up when he described his company’s efforts to improve quality and reduce cycle time. He pointed to the “In” basket on his desk, which contained one bound report. He told me he had set a personal cycle time goal to turn around any report that crossed his desk for feedback within 24 hours of receipt and he was tracking performance on that goal. He wasn’t at 100%, but he was getting close.

Galvin believed that, if a company takes care of quality and cycle time, the bottom line will take care of itself. To get his point across, he attended the company’s four-hour performance reviews, held eight times a year, to discuss quality and cycle time performance and issues. They did this during the first half of the meetings, after which Galvin left—before they talked about finances. His action affirmed his personal belief that, if quality and cycle time are improving, financial performance will improve with them.

While the Baldrige program currently faces some financial uncertainty, it’s interesting to remember Galvin’s perspective. In 1991, he lobbied to make the Baldrige Award a national policy. “If every company prepares to compete for the award through the early Nineties, it will change the growth rate of the GNP by a minimum of one-half of one percent,” he told me. “To do that we need a catalyst, and that catalyst is to make competing for the Baldrige Award a national policy.”

That’s an opposing view to the one currently held by our political leaders. When it comes to how to make American industry more competitive, my money’s on the Baldrige legend, Bob Galvin.

The client was in the United Kingdom. Here’s a synopsis of how Firstsource tackled the problem:

1. It used data to define the problem: Over a nine-week period, the client offered mortgage loans in 14 days or less 69% of the time, well short of the 75% target.
2. A financial benefit estimation exercise determined that improving performance on TAT to 80% would increase revenue by six million pounds annually, create a more efficient process, and provide faster service to applicants.
3. Firstsource formed a team to improve TAT. The team received training on the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology and quality tools.
4. The team started with a supplier-inputs-process-outputs-customer (SIPOC) exercise to create a high-level process map and identify stakeholders.
5. The team produced a three-stage analysis road map to assess the current situation and identify possible root causes and improvement activities. It used the road map to agree on five causes of the longer TAT.
6. The team brainstormed possible solutions and then assigned a relative rating for each solution to eliminate half of the original possibilities.
7. The team validated the impact of the solutions through a one-week pilot study with a metrics dashboard that was shared with all stakeholders involved in developing solutions. Based on their feedback, the team decided to proceed with full implementation.
8. The team used PDCA to roll out the solutions, which were grouped into three areas: process changes, automation, and performance management.
9. As a result of the improvement project, TAT improved from 69% to 83%, producing additional revenue of 6.9 million pounds and improving the application-to-loan conversion ration by 1.4%.
10. Customer satisfaction ratings rose 17% from pre- to post-project.
11. The projects’ findings were replicated in other areas of the client’s business, resulting in an additional half-million pounds in revenue.
12. The team introduced a three-prong approach to sustain performance: (1) real-time process management systems to provide performance data on all root causes; (2) process controls for standard operating procedures; and, (3) a skill-evaluation matrix for assessing and responding to training needs.

To read more about process improvement, click on these articles:

• Smart Question #1: What’s the Process?
• Baldrige and Process Improvement
• Go to the Gemba
• What Process-Centered Looks Like
• Keys to Successful Process Improvement

This excerpt from Montgomery County Public Schools’ 2010 Baldrige Award-winning application could describe every Baldrige Award winner. All are process centered. A great example of what it means to be process-centered can be found in MCPS’s Road Map to Process Management and Improvement and Knowledge Management, which you can view by clicking on the title of this article or on the blue “Continued” below.

At MCPS, every office, department, and division has identified its key processes, mapped them, used a systematic and systemic model (IGOE: inputs, guides, outputs, and enablers) to identify interrelationships and interdependencies of key processes and staff, and determined how to measure process effectiveness. You can read more about IGOE and process management at MCPS in its application summary here.

All key processes have in-process measures that monitor quality such as rework and errors. And no, MCPS is not a manufacturer: It’s a school system, even though its approaches to process management sound like those of a well-run business. If rework and errors continue, a process team determines which improvement method of PDSA (plan/do/study/act) is appropriate: Lean, Six Sigma, or project management.

In its response to Item 7.5, Process-Effectiveness Outcomes, MCPS provides a one-and-a-half page table that lists its key processes, process requirements, and process improvement results. It’s not an ideal response because it doesn’t show trends, but it is certainly comprehensive, and its trends must have been just fine because it passed its site visit.

You can see the list of processes and results on pages 47 and 48 of the MCPS application, which you will find here. To read more about Baldrige and education, hover over the “Sector” tab at the top of this page and then click on “Education.”

A few years ago, I co-authored a white paper outlining The Three Keys to Six Sigma Success.  The paper concluded that, by focusing on the key principles of project selection, securing executive support, and executing the DMAIC method, quality practitioners could increase their overall project success rate. This is proven to be true time and again.

I know what you’re thinking: “OK, but these principles are neither ground-breaking nor new”—and you’d be correct. But what was fairly new at the time was Minitab’s process improvement software, Quality Companion. The all-in-one application supports continuous improvement activities across different levels of a quality program as well as many stages of improvement projects. By summarizing our voice of the customer research into a white paper, we were able to easily draw parallels between the keys for success and Companion’s features, tools, and forms.

Since then, Quality Companion has been updated with Lean Six Sigma support features, including Value Stream Mapping, and its user community continues to grow as does Minitab’s plans for ongoing software enhancements.

So, now you’re probably thinking: “Why is she writing about Lean and Six Sigma on a website that’s focused on Baldrige?”

Because, at their core, Lean, Six Sigma, and the Baldrige model are all systematic approaches to performance excellence. Regardless of the methodology in which you’re currently engaged, Companion can help you build on that systematic approach and improve how you manage projects. I suggest that you owe it to yourself to find out more.

Click the “See It. Improve It.” button on the right to discover why so many quality practitioners use Minitab to analyze their data and use Quality Companion for everything else.   Be sure to download a free 30-day trial of Companion, watch a few videos in the Minitab Theater, and sign up for free webinars.

The education part is the Executive Master of Public Administration: Concentration for Nurse Leaders program at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. (Let’s see you fit that on a business card.) For their Capstone project, the six people in the program decided to analyze how much time nurses spend getting the equipment they need to get their jobs done.

They carefully observed nursing staff at New-York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center. They wrote down how much time nurses spent with patients. They photographed rooms after patients were discharged. They watched what nurses did when they weren’t with patients and they discovered that nurses had to get supplies for each patient from a central storeroom. It wasn’t a quick trip and it took them away from patients, which meant nurses tended to get everything they thought they might need to avoid return trips. Once supplies are brought to a patient’s room, they must be used or thrown away. If they forgot something or needed more supplies, nurses had to return to the central storeroom. They were often interrupted on their way to and from the storeroom, which increased the risk of error.

From a process management perspective, this process is fraught with waste, from unnecessary supplies being thrown away to long trips to the storeroom to additional trips that wasted valuable nursing time. The process threatens quality of care by compelling nurses to leave their patients to get supplies and distracting them while they are away.

The project’s participants addressed these problems with an elegant solution: They turned the closets in patient rooms, which were rarely used, into nursing supply closets, working with architects, cabinetmakers, and the materials-management department to create a model that is now being piloted. Now nurses can get exactly what they need without leaving the patient’s room and none of what they get is wasted.

One of the fundamental steps in process management and improvement, a step that is formalized in both Lean and Six Sigma, is to map the existing process. The people in this program did it through observation and photographs. If you want to improve a process, start by observing it until you understand exactly how it operates. Careful observation will reveal what needs to be fixed.

To read more about process management, click on these articles:

• The 3 P’s: Starting Points for Integrating Baldrige
• The Value of Lean
• The Benefits of Process Thinking
• Ask What, Not Who
• We Are All Idiots
• 10 Critical Questions: Process Management

I’ve written about the impact of leadership changes in “Leadership Matters Most,” citing the example of AT&T Universal Card Services, which was launched using the Baldrige model, climbed to second in the U.S. credit card industry in just 30 months, and then changed leadership and dropped to eighth over the next 30 months.

In “Keep Your Eye on Process Improvement” (HBR, August 18, 2010), Brad Power recounts the story of Allied Signal, which used Six Sigma in the 1990s to produce 31 straight quarters of earnings-per-share growth of 13% or more. Leadership changed in 2000 and 18 months later, the Six Sigma culture had essentially disappeared.

Sustainability of the positive changes associated with Baldrige, lean, and Six Sigma is not difficult if leadership and ownership don’t change, but such changes are inevitable. CEOs move on, quit, or retire. Companies merge or are acquired. So the ultimate sustainability question is: How can we keep the transformation going after those who led it are gone?

I see two ways this can happen. The first is to replace the leaders of the transformation with new leaders who fully support it. If the CEO is replaced by the COO who was personally involved in changing the culture, the transformation will continue unabated.

The second way is to establish a culture that compels new leaders to embrace it. A good example is the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, which won the Baldrige Award in 1992 and again in 1999. Simon Cooper took over leadership of the company in 2001 and has led a major expansion of the hotel chain, but he did not mess with the culture even though he had no part in developing it. The Ritz-Carlton sustains its competitive advantage because Mr. Cooper recognized that the culture he inherited was helping to produce the results he wanted to achieve.

Of course, even the strongest cultures can be dismantled if new leaders fail to see their value. In the end, sustaining programs such as Baldrige, lean, and Six Sigma does not depend on the results they produce: It depends on leadership.

To read more about sustainability, click on these articles:

• Sustainability: A Business Imperative
• Sustainability Forces Wheel
• What People Need to Hear
• 4 Parts of True Sustainability

Change is difficult. In our personal lives we struggle to break bad habits, eat a healthier diet, or get more exercise. In spite of our good intentions, we often fail.

Organizations also find it difficult to change: Studies show that almost 85% of change initiatives fail. Even when faced with a crisis, many organizations are not able to make the changes necessary to survive. As W. Edwards Deming said, “Survival is not mandatory; it is purely optional.”

In 2004, on the 50^th anniversary of the Fortune 500 list, only 71 of the original 500 remained on the list. Not all of them failed, of course, but the majority did. And they failed because they were not able to change with the times.

Why is change so difficult and what is the answer? One of the main reasons transformation initiatives fail is our love of management fads. In her book, Fad Surfing in the Boardroom, Eileen Shapiro defines fad surfing as “the practice of riding the crest of the latest management panacea and then paddling out again just in time to ride the next one; always absorbing for managers and lucrative for consultants; frequently disastrous for organizations.”

New management theories are constantly developed by “gurus” and published in prestigious journals. Recent examples include the boundaryless organization, job sculpting, reengineering, and, yes, Six Sigma. Most of these new management theories turn out to be nothing more than fads.

Six Sigma is an interesting example. The theory is sound: Removing the cause of errors reduces process variability, improves quality, and reduces costs. There are numerous examples of applications yielding impressive results. Yet Fortune magazine recently reported that only a small minority of companies have actually achieved any benefits from Six Sigma.

There’s a disconnect here: These new management theories are applied in isolation as standalone management practices. To be successful they must be applied as a component of a complete management system. A system exists when all the relevant components are present and in proper relationship to each other.

The Baldrige model is the best known and most comprehensive management system that exists today. The components are the seven categories shown, with the proper relationships, in the following diagram.

The Baldrige model is reinforced by its scoring method and by the relative weights assigned to each of the categories. It serves as an introspective, diagnostic tool that produces sustained organizational excellence.

When new management theories are applied within the context of the Baldrige system, they become validated management practice and not fads. For example, Six Sigma is effective when it is seen as part of the process component of the Baldrige model. It must be put into its proper relationship with leadership, strategy, customer requirements, and the workforce to produce results. If senior leaders don’t lead the Six Sigma initiative, it will fail. If Six Sigma is not an integral part of the company’s strategy, it will fail. Those companies that have not seen results from Six Sigma failed because they saw Six Sigma as a standalone management practice, not as one component of a system.

Organizational change is difficult. It can only happen when management is seen as a system with all components present and in the proper relationship to each other.

Arnie Weimerskirch
Executive Fellow, The SAIP Institute