Baldrige Expands Reach to Small Businesses

The Baldrige program is expanding its reach to small businesses through a new collaboration with the Alliance for Performance Excellence and The Alternative Board (TAB). The Alliance is a nonprofit network of national, state, and local Baldrige-based award programs. TAB provides peer advisory boards and coaching services for small business leaders.

According to a press release from the Baldrige program, the state programs will work with TAB boards across the country to help small business operators learn the Baldrige Criteria and use the Criteria to assess and improve performance.

The new effort drew praise from Terry May, president of MESA Products, a 2006 Baldrige Award recipient in the small business category. “TAB is a great resource for learning and sharing with my peers,” May said, “providing real-world, practical guidance to help me improve and grow my business. The Baldrige process, both at the state and national levels, helped me take MESA to an even higher level of performance and achieve breakthrough results. So, a partnership between local TAB boards and state Baldrige programs will be a great resource for small businesses.”

The collaboration between the Baldrige program and the Alliance is another indicator of the new relationship between the programs. Earlier this month, the Baldrige program…

Baldrige Program Update

Our misguided Congress decided not to fund the Baldrige program in 2012. However, the Baldrige program will continue through the support of the Baldrige Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that has pledged up to $5.2 million for the 2012 cycle. While that does not match the federal funding that was lost, it will keep the program going.

According to an email from Debbie Collard, chair of the Foundation, it “is committed to provide funding for FY2013 and beyond, commensurate with a budget-neutral private sector-funded business and financial model which is under development by a team of members from the Baldrige Enterprise.”

To reassure those organizations and leaders who are considering Baldrige or taking the first steps toward integrating it, the Baldrige program is not likely to end because it lost federal funding. The Foundation will provide essential support during the transition that must occur for the program to survive and thrive. In a Blogrige post, Baldrige program director Harry Hertz outlined the steps being taken to ensure the program’s sustainability:

“We are actively working with our Enterprise partners (the Baldrige Foundation, the Alliance for Performance Excellence, and ASQ) to develop an Enterprise business and financial model that looks at Baldrige processes on an enterprise-wide…

Baldrige FAQs: The Baldrige Criteria

What are the Baldrige Criteria?

The Baldrige Criteria define a management model focused on performance excellence. By answering more than 250 Criteria questions, organizations get a comprehensive snapshot of their management systems that they can use to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. There are three versions of the Baldrige Criteria, one for businesses and nonprofits, one for healthcare, and one for education. You can view the 2011-2012 Criteria online here.

Who develops the Criteria?

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is responsible for the Baldrige Criteria, which are revised and published every two years. The Baldrige Program solicits input from Award applicants, members of the Board of Examiners, and others to update the Criteria.

What do the Criteria address?

The Baldrige Criteria are organized into an Organizational Profile and seven categories: Leadership; Strategic Planning; Customer Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management; Workforce Focus; Operations Focus; and Results. Each category is divided into Items, and each Item is further divided into Areas to Address that pose the questions to be answered.

For example, the Leadership category has two Items: Senior Leadership and Governance and Social Responsibility. The Senior Leadership Item has two Areas to Address: Vision, Values, and Mission and Communication and Organizational Performance. Each Area groups…

The Financial Impact of Integrating Baldrige

Business leaders have long sought proof that embracing the Baldrige model, implementing Total Quality Management, or applying for Baldrige Award or state quality awards pays. Does it make our company more profitable? Does it return value to our shareholders? Is it worth the effort and changes involved?

The answer to all three questions is, “Yes.”

Dr. Vinod Singhal of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr. Kevin Hendricks of the College of William and Mary did a five-year study of more than 600 quality award winners. They compared the financial performance of these winners with a control sample of companies similar in size and operating in the same industries. Singhal and Hendricks tracked both groups for ten years: six years before the award winners won their award and four years after.

Their study revealed that, over a five-year period starting one year before the winners won their first award, the award winners averaged significantly larger increases in several key measures of financial performance:

• 44% higher stock price return
• 48% higher growth in operating income
• 37% higher growth in sales

When Singhal and Hendricks separated the independent award winners (Baldrige and state quality award winners) from those companies winning supplier awards, the results were even more dramatic:

• 61% increase…