Quality, excellence and (Perpetual) Innovation
Talking about quality… The Baldrige Program is a rather cool program for improving the process of quality in an organization… Brought to you from the US Department of Commerce through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Download the 2017-2018 Baldrige Excellence Builder.
easyInsight Assessment for:
- For Manufacturers, Service Organizations, Small Businesses, Nonprofit Organizations, and Government Organizations: Assessment here.
- Education: Edu Assessment here.
- Health Care: Assessment here.
There’s a discussion at NIST about why you would use the Baldrige Program vs other Total Quality Management (TQM) programs. Generally, they suggest using Baldrige for the over planning and processes, but use lean for the the continuous improvement.
There’s an interesting article about TQM programs and implementation of them by Fleming-Farrell, Hall and Blando (2014). It summarizes two TQM-type studies, one focuses on the top of the organization, the other on the six-sigma practitioner. From the top view, there seems to be no correlation between the number TQM-type programs and the performance of them; so going to the next flavor of TQM does not necessarily do much, it is the care and feeding that goes into your quality program that makes the difference.
Oh, and there is almost no relationship between the participation in six sigma and compensation. Black belts get a little more pay, but generally there is no pay increase for working harder and longer at quality improvement. Of course the skill and skill set might prompt a six sigma practitioner, after training and experience, to jump ship and take a big raise elsewhere.
Maybe awards and recognition might help?
Glad you asked, there is also the Baldrige Award.
Or, in Florida, the Florida Sterling Award.
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