Baldrige Criteria Consulting

The Malcolm Baldrige criteria can provide a time tested set of strategic questions to evaluate your organization’s health and level of planning and execution in the following key areas:

• Leadership – How upper management leads the organization, and how the organization leads within the community.
• Strategic Planning – How the organization establishes and plans to implement strategic directions.
• Customer and Market focus – How the organization builds and maintains strong, lasting relationships with customers.
• Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management – How the organization uses data to support key processes and manage performance.
• Human Resource focus – How the organization empowers and involves its workforce.
• Process Management – How the organization designs, manages and improves key processes.
• Business/organizational Performance Results – How the organization performs in terms of customer satisfaction, finances, human resources, supplier and partner performance, operations, governance and social responsibility, and how the organization compares to its competitors.

The Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence is an integrated approach that any organization can use to improve overall performance. For over 26 years the criteria have been used by thousands of organizations of all kinds for self-assessment and training and as a tool to develop performance and business processes.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) has historically been considered the gold standard in quality awards. Texas and other states have award programs based on the Baldrige Criteria. In Texas the Quality Texas Foundation administers the Texas Award for Performance Excellence

Donald McLachlan is an experienced Baldrige Consultant. Several of his clients have applied for the national Baldrige award and received site visits. He has been an examiner, feedback editor, writer, team leader, book editor, trainer, and curriculum developer. His Baldrige-based curriculum has been translated into Spanish and Mandarin.

Benefits
Studies by NIST, universities, business organizations, and the U.S. General Accounting Office have found that investing in quality principles and performance excellence pays off in:

• Increased productivity
• Satisfied employees and customers
• Improved profitability—both for customers and investors

Winning a Baldrige award at the state level has outstanding prestige and can be used effectively in marketing your organization.

Approach
If your organization is serious about quality and ready to invest the time, energy, and strategic focus to apply for a Baldrige Award, then here are the critical success factors necessary to win:

• Strong leadership and buy-in from top management
• Total commitment of all resources to quality and award process
• Complete buy-in to award process by all employees
• Benchmarking and metrics showing three years of positive trends in every area of the organization
• Strategic Plan that links objectives, values, and metrics to results across the organization
• An expert Baldrige consultant to guide organization through the award process

If you are not interested in applying for a Baldrige award but would still like to utilize the Baldrige criteria to improve the performance of your organization, we can perform a comprehensive assessment based on the Baldrige criteria. The results of that assessment can then be used to pinpoint areas of strength and opportunities for improvement and design customized processes for improvement.

Would you like to apply for a Baldrige award or use the Criteria to improve your organization? Let’s Talk