| Index | Last Week | Contact DQ News | Latest Issue |
| Featured Articles | Data & Information | Science & Technology | Education |
| Economics | Business | Law | Medicine |
1998 Baldrige Quality Award Criteria: Missing Essential Data Quality and Information Quality Elements?
The United States Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued the 1998 Baldrige Quality Award's "Criteria for Performance Excellence." According to NIST's "Criteria for Excellence" brochure, the Baldrige Award is based upon performance excellence criteria created through a public-private partnership. According to NIST's brochure, award applicants are expected to provide information and data about a company's key processes and results. NIST requires this information and data to demonstrate that applicants' approaches are effective and yield desired outcomes. The National Quality Program at NIST manages the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) administers the program under contract to NIST.
The 1998 Baldrige Award "Criteria for Excellence" include: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results. There are 1000 total points, and business results are worth 450 points. The information and analysis category is worth 80 points.
Although the Baldrige Award criteria are data and information driven, data quality and information quality are not part of the Award's evaluation process. The Award criteria assume data and information quality are excellent. But exactly what do the Baldrige Award judges analyze? Who in the corporations that are being judged supply the data that the Baldrige Award judges analyze? Are the data and information presented to the judges "selectively edited" to present a more favorable view of the applicants (see, for example, the discussion of U.S. News & World Report's yearly college rankings in previous issues of this on-line newsletter.)
According to several persons who use the Baldrige Award criteria as templates for manufacturing quality systems, the criteria are regarded favorably by corporations that have used them. The criteria are also generally regarded as reflecting "state of the art" manufacturing quality practices and are updated annually. One past criticism of the Baldrige Award criteria was that, depending on the corporation, the self-assessment and application process can be time consuming and expensive.
Information about the Baldrige Award and the 1998 Criteria for Performance Excellence may be obtained from NIST. See NIST's Web site: http://www.quality.nist.gov, or send e-mail to: nqp@nist.gov.