[ Music and Effects ]
[Narrator] If you want to see success
in your organization's future this is the crystal
to look in to.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award ?
the nation's highest honor for performance excellence.
Yet it's so much more than a prestigious award.
Since 1988 it's been the symbol of a program that gets results.
[Raymond Marlow] We didn't set out to win an award.
What we set out to do was to look at a total quality system
that would provide continuous improvement to our customers.
[Earnest Davenport] We did it to win customers.
We did it to grow.
We did it to prosper and to remain competitive and indeed
in a world marketplace.
[Christy Stephenson] Even
in my most optimistic I didn't foresee all of the benefits
of being part of the Baldrige process.
It's energized this organization, it's unified
and motivated employees.
There's a renewed sense of pride.
I think the quality of all of the work that we do,
the actual results of the organization are better
because we've been part of this process.
[Narrator] And results are what this process is all about.
Tripling market share.
Increasing sales.
Raising revenues.
Improving customer satisfaction.
Increasing student achievement.
Improving patient satisfaction.
And retaining employees and staff.
Results like these are being achieved in manufacturing,
service and small business as well as healthcare, education
and nonprofit because the Baldrige process is
for all organizations.
And it benefits far more than just those
that apply for the award.
[Harry Hertz] The Baldrige program truly is a national
education program with its goal being to educate organizations
of all types about the components
of a full management system and what you need to be thinking
about if you want
to be successful running an enterprise today.
Baldrige is about taking you from where you are
to the next level of performance.
[Narrator] And where you are may be at the very beginning.
. . [Dale Crownover] I didn't have a lot
of formal education running a business,
so the Baldrige Criteria was kind of my business plan.
So I really did sincerely embed this as much as possible.
[Narrator] Or you may be doing just fine.
[Sister Mary Jean Ryan] We were financially sound and all
of the rest but we just said we've got to get better.
So we've applied the Baldrige and what we said
to people is this is the best way to get better faster.
We are a very different organization today
than we were just four years ago
when we first began this process.
Baldrige has been the key to a level of success
that I believe we imagined and hoped for but never really knew
until we became involved with it.
[Koichi Nishimura] You have to work both hard and intelligently
if you are going to be consistently successful.
You have to be pretty persistent and determined and focused
in how you go about doing your business and so we decided
to adopt the Baldrige process to do that as a road map.
If you are going from here to New York,
there are many ways to get there.
We decided to take the interstate.
[Horst Schulze] For seven years
in a row we improved customer satisfaction,
we improved occupancies, we improved employee satisfaction,
we lowered turnover, and we improved annually our profit.
And we lowered the hours worked annually.
This is only possible because we followed the Baldrige criteria.
[Harry Hertz] The Baldrige process is about getting better.
The Baldrige process is about seeking performance excellence.
And the Baldrige criteria
and framework provide them a framework for looking
at everything that's important to getting better.
[Debbie Collard] What I like so much about the criteria
for performance excellence is it's a systematic approach
across the whole organization that helps you get results
in every area, better results in every area.
[Narrator] While other approaches focus
on a single aspect such as leadership
or process management the Baldrige Criteria provide an
integrated management framework that addresses all the factors
that define an organization's operations and results.
And the process is compatible with Lean
and Six Sigma strategies as well as ISO 9000.
[Robert Gavin] Anything that's wrong is costing you money.
If you get the process exactly right it's going to be cheaper
and it's going to be better.
[Narrator] The Criteria are also adaptable.
Designed for self-assessment, they ask questions
that you can answer in a way that deals with your business,
your challenges and your operating environment.
That's why so many different kinds of organizations -
small and large - are using the Criteria so successfully.
For example a school district in Illinois that serves
over 12,000 students from kindergarten
through eighth grade and another school district
in South Central Alaska that provides pre-school
to post-secondary education for 214 students
and three schools spread out over 22,000 square miles.
And the Baldrige process can be found in institutions
of higher learning as well.
[Charles Sorenson] We have demonstrated
that this is a good way to go for public higher education
and private higher education ?
to measure quality and to be accountable to the taxpayers
and to our stakeholders.
[Narrator] And then there's Pal's Sudden Service.
[Thomas Crosby] We're a small hot dog and hamburger operation
in the hills of Tennessee,
but we can effectively apply the criteria
and have tremendous results.
[David ?] You've got to be good in them all and you've got
to be trying to improve and comparing yourself to the rest
of the world otherwise you won't be world class,
and even if you are one day, you won't stay there
because the world will move by you
or you'll take your eye off the ball somewhere
and something will go in the wrong direction.
[John Heer] If you break the Baldrige Criteria down,
all it is is how to run a quality organization.
And get great results.
And isn't that what companies are in business for?
[Narrator] The Baldrige criteria are regularly evaluated
and improved so they consistently represent the
leading edge of validated management practice.
That's just one of the reasons the process can also help
organizations sustain success - and grow -
like this two-time Baldrige recipient.
The first time Sunny Fresh Foods received the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award it was in the Small Business category.
The second time it was in the manufacturing category ?
having nearly doubled in size and increased revenues by 93%.
[Mike Luker] We realized that quality is a journey.
That when we received the first Baldrige,
that wasn't a destination, that was a milestone.
It really does show that through the Baldrige process
and application of the criteria you can have a business model
that is truly sustainable; that through growth, through change,
you can continue to keep the focus and the business
on the customer and on our stakeholders.
[Richard Mader] Baldrige means continuous improvement.
We're not there yet.
We're continuously improving.
And it's something that is so deep in our organization
that the concepts and principles
of Baldrige will be applied forever here.
[Paula Marshall-Chapman] We've gotten so many wonderful things
out of this process that we don't want to lose the momentum.
And we don't want to lose the properties
of things that we've gotten.
So we will be continuing on.
[John Friel] Baldrige isn't something extra.
It's part of what we do.
We do Baldrige every day.
So if you want to improve the performance of the organization,
it's an excellent framework and an excellent set of tools to use
to help drive continuous improvement.
[Narrator] What all these organizations -
and hundreds more - have in common is
that they took the first step.
[Harry Hertz] When you're first getting started,
there are all sorts of tools that we provide for you
to do self-assessment,
to do rapid employee survey-based self-assessment,
and the results you get
from that will jump start your initiative toward improving.
But at some point you have to decide,
'I wanna get some external validation.
I want to find out how well I'm doing in comparison
to other organizations.
[Narrator] One of the best ways to do that is to apply to state
and local programs that use Baldrige-based criteria.
[Harry Hertz] It's a great place to get started with networking,
with a simplified application process and get
that valuable feedback that will accelerate your improvement.
[Mike Strong] The feedback report consists of strengths
and opportunities for improvement
and for those organizations that are new
to the process this gives them that line in the sand on areas
where they can focus some of their resources
to make themselves better.
[Harry Hertz] And then eventually, hopefully,
you will see the great benefit that it's providing
and then you'll submit a Baldrige application
and get the feedback that you enjoy from the Baldrige process.
[Michael Levinson] The true benefit of being involved
with the Florida Sterling Council
and the Baldrige Award process is not the awards.
It's the feedback and the opportunities for improvement
that are identified in those feedback reports are immediately
injected into our business plan to improve our processes
which drive better results.
[Harry Hertz] We've been told many times
that the feedback report is invaluable.
It really is about the cheapest,
most valuable business consulting
or organizational consulting that you can get
in the United States today
because you're getting a whole team of experts to look
at your organization from perspectives
of multiple industries and the knowledge they bring from them
to bear on the specifics of your organization.
[Michael Levinson] People say, 'Why Baldrige?'
My answer is very simple.
Triple A bond rating on Wall Street
from all three rating agencies.
Bringing capital projects in on time and within budget.
A 96% business satisfaction rating,
a 94% resident satisfaction rating,
an overall quality rating of 95%
and an employee satisfaction rating of 97%.
That's why we're involved with Baldrige.
[Harry Hertz] If you're using the Baldrige criteria,
if you're applying for the Baldrige Award, you're applying
for the feedback to accelerate the improvement
of your organization.
If you should receive the award at some point, that's wonderful.
But it's about improving your organization.
[Narrator] The Baldrige Program.
It's all about results so visit our web site,
imagine your future, and begin your quest for excellence!