Quality Assurance
September, 08 2012

QUALITY AWARDS The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) is presented annually by the President of the United States to organizations that demonstrate quality and performance excellence. Three awards may be given annually in each of six categories: small business, manufacturing, service company, education, healthcare or nonprofit organization. The Baldrige Award is named after the late Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige, a proponent of quality management. Organizations that apply for the Baldrige Award are judged by an independent board of examiners. Recipients are selected based on achievement and improvement in seven areas. Our text book refers to this seven areas as category 1, category 2 etc.
First area/category is: 1. Leadership: How upper management leads the organization, and how the organization leads within the community. 2. Strategic planning: How the organization establishes and plans to implement strategic directions. 3. Customer and market focus: How the organization builds and maintains strong, lasting relationships with customers. 4. Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management: How the organization uses data to support key processes and manage performance. 5. Human resource focus: How the organization empowers and involves its workforce. 6. Process management: How the organization designs, manages and improves key processes. 7. 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.
To obtain the Baldridge award a company first fills an eligibility determination form to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). After eligibility is established applicant fills a complete application which is reviewed by examiners and Judges. Members of the Board of Examiners review and evaluate the application. Examiners are volunteers who are screened by the Baldrige program and trained in the evaluation process. The review process has four stages: Independent review, Consensus review, Site visit and Judges’ review consecutively. According to www.baldrige.com, ”Up to 18 awards may be given across the six eligibility categories each year. The most awards presented were seven in 2003. Seventy-five organizations received Baldrige Awards from 1988 to 2008 including four two-time winners: Solectron, Sunny Fresh Foods, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and Texas Nameplate Company “ this shows how hard it is to get a Baldrige award. Baldrige award enhances competitiveness, quality and productivity in U.S organization
ISO 9000 ISO9000 is an international quality certification that defines minimum requirements for a company’s
Quality Management System (QMS). A company’s QMS comprises the organization’s policies, procedures and other internal requirements that ensure customer requirements are met with consistency resulting in customer satisfaction. Some of the areas of the company within the scope of
ISO9000 include:
• Customer contracts
• Hiring and employee training
• Design and development of products and services
• Production and delivery of products and services
• Selection and managing of suppliers
• Management responsibility
• Internal quality audits
• Monitoring and measuring
• Continual improvement
• Corrective and preventive action
To receive an ISO9000 certification a company must put the required QMS processes and controls in place, monitor performance of its processes and demonstrate continual improvement. Most companies hire an experienced consulting firm to assist with these preparations. Once the QMS is in place, a registrar (or certification body) is hired to audit the company’s compliance with ISO9000 requirements. If discrepancies are found during the audit, they must be corrected before the ISO9000 certificate is issued. The ISO9000 certification must be maintained through regular audits (bi-annual or annual) conducted by the selected registrar.
Organizations that implement an ISO 9000 compliant QMS usually realize important benefits, including a more organized operating environment, a greater number of customers and a higher level of satisfaction among those customers. Whether you are planning a QMS in response to direct market requirements or want to increase the productivity of your organization, you will experience: process improvement, Increased quality awareness, consestuncy in operations and market advantages from being recognized as an ISO 9000 certified company.
Oklahoma State Quality Award
The mission of Oklahoma State Quality Award is to help Oklahoma organizations improve results and become more competitive through performance excellence.
The Oklahoma quality foundation is a non-profit organization that began in 1993 as a partnership between the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and the Oklahoma Business Roundtable. The (Oklahoma Quality Foundation) OQF is the only official program in Oklahoma to determine the level of an organization’s performance and provide public recognition to recipients on its level of accomplishment. They administer the three-tiered Oklahoma Quality Awards program of Commitment, Achievement and Excellence Level, all patterned after the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The award program promotes performance excellence, recognizes achievements of Oklahoma companies and organizations, and provides a vehicle for sharing successful strategies. Criteria for the award helps provide a framework for designing, implementing and assessing a process for managing all of the organization’s operations.
They are the only official program in Oklahoma that works to determine the level of an organization’s performance and in turn, provide public recognition to award recipients based on their level of accomplishment.

References http://www.oklahomaquality.com/about http://www.9000world.com/What_is_ISO9000-ISOExplained.pdf
http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/malcolm-baldrige-award/overview/overview.htm