Country United States | Official website www.nist.gov/baldrige/ | |
Awarded for Recognizing American organizations in all sectors of the economy for demonstrating performance excellence using the systems perspective and other core concepts and values of the Baldrige Excellence Framework; applicants are evaluated for the award against the criteria for performance excellence First awarded November 14, 1988; 28 years ago (1988-11-14) | ||
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recognizes U.S. organizations in the business, health care, education, and nonprofit sectors for performance excellence. The Baldrige Award is the only formal recognition of the performance excellence of both public and private U.S. organizations given by the President of the United States. It is administered by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which is based at and managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Up to 18 awards may be given annually across six eligibility categories—manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care, and nonprofit. As of 2016, 113 awards have been presented to 106 organizations (including seven repeat winners).
Contents
- Baldrige Excellence Framework
- History of the Baldrige Program
- Program Impacts
- Public Private Partnership
- References
The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and the associated award were established by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987 (Public Law 100–107). The program and award were named for Malcolm Baldrige, who served as United States Secretary of Commerce during the Reagan administration, from 1981 until Baldrige’s 1987 death in a rodeo accident. In 2010, the program's name was changed to the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program to reflect the evolution of the field of quality from a focus on product, service, and customer quality to a broader, strategic focus on overall organizational quality—called performance excellence.
The award promotes awareness of performance excellence as an important element in competitiveness. It also promotes the sharing of successful performance strategies and the benefits derived from using these strategies. To receive a Baldrige Award, an organization must have a role-model organizational management system that ensures continuous improvement in delivering products and/or services, demonstrate efficient and effective operations, and provide a way of engaging and responding to customers and other stakeholders. The award is not given for specific products or services.
Baldrige Excellence Framework
The Baldrige Excellence Framework has three parts: (1) the criteria for performance excellence, (2) core values and concepts, and (3) scoring guidelines. The framework serves two main purposes: (1) to help organizations assess their improvement efforts, diagnose their overall performance management system, and identify their strengths and opportunities for improvement and (2) to identify Baldrige Award recipients that will serve as role models for other organizations.
The criteria for performance excellence are based on a set of core values:
The questions that make up the criteria represent seven aspects of organizational management and performance:
The three sector-specific versions of the Baldrige framework are revised every two years:
History of the Baldrige Program
In the early and mid-1980s, many U.S. industry and government leaders saw that a renewed emphasis on quality was necessary for doing business in an expanding and competitive world market.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987, signed into law on August 20, 1987, was developed through the actions of the National Productivity Advisory Committee, chaired by Jack Grayson. The nonprofit research organization APQC, founded by Grayson, organized the first White House Conference on Productivity, spearheading the creation of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1987. The Baldrige Award was envisioned as a standard of excellence that would help U.S. organizations achieve competitive quality.
In the late summer and fall of 1987, Dr. Curt Reimann, the first director of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Program, and his staff at the National Institute of Standards and Technology developed an award implementation framework, including an evaluation scheme, and advanced proposals for what is now the Baldrige Award. In its first three years, the Baldrige Award was jointly administered by APQC and the American Society for Quality, which continues to assist in administering the award program under contract to NIST.
Program Impacts
A study by Truven Health Analytics links hospitals that adopt and use the Baldrige Criteria to successful operations, management practices, and overall performance.
Public-Private Partnership
The Baldrige Award is supported by a public-private partnership. The following organizations and entities play a key role: