Have any of you enrolled in either the Baldrige Award program or your states version? My boss, general manager, asked me if we should think about participating in our state's Performance Excellence Award Program. I know that it is not the answer he wants to hear, but I just really don't see where the $1300 dollar fee to participate and then a $3300 to $6600 fee for assessment is really going to bring us any gains. (Is it one of those, that and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee?) I cannot say that I have ever looked to see if a potential supplier was the recipient of one of these awards.

Please, if you have any experience, or just an opinion, share it with me. Appreciate all comments!:thanx:

I'd like to suggest the situation is similar to, but not exactly analogous to, the decision whether to get 3rd party registration to, or merely be compliant to, one of the ISO Standards.

My knowledge and familiarity with Baldrige and some of the State programs is that the criteria are excellent for any organization to aspire to achieve.

Paying to have a third party team audit and evaluate the program is unlike 3rd party registration to an ISO Standard because there is no extortion by customers making the program a requirement to do business.

The decision to pay for the evaluation rather than merely comply with the criteria is strictly based on pride and whatever market edge the bragging rights of achievement may confer.

While not yet applicable to our North American locations, our South American facilities have participated in their respective Malcolm Baldridge equivalents (and done really well, too...several medalists in our little family).

We are also big on internal competition. Our South American family has medals distributed on their results of a 32-element (1000 points) assessment. The plan is to bring the award to North America, set up divisions on both continents, hand out internal awards on a division-basis and then have an overall award to the "best" in the entire group.

My location has already been assessed once, on an informal basis, and despite underrating ourselves, we would have qualified for a silver medal. Next assessment is this Friday and we're busy getting material and evidence prepared for the Assessor (instead of having him wander around and/or "taking our word for it").

So, Roxy, do you think that you've seen or will see any increased sales? I surely appreciate the fact that it appears that you are using it as a way to boost continual improvement via intradivisional competition. I believe that would be our highest use also (as well it should be)

Well....ummmm... :o ...theoretically, as we've improved our processes, our product has improved thus increasing returning Customers and increasing our Sales numbers....but that's all just theory, of course. These internal competitions, while the end result is improvement, does spark much fire and flame between the locations.

This week's assessment, for example, while not associated with any quality award (internal or external) will result in bragging rights for one mill in North America. Last year, my location had the highest in the group audited (but that was out of 5 mills). This audit will include around 14 locations so final results won't be known for a while. However, priority this week - besides getting quality product out the door - is getting all of our information compiled into nice binders for the assessors to view.

Getting back to your question, though, is there an increase in Sales? I don't know...I mean, it's like another discussion in another thread regarding increased Sales and ISO registration. There is not black and white answer. I do think that there is a relationship, but I doubt we will ever truly know if there is a definitive relationship.

I look at it like this though. Let's say Malcolm Baldridge costs you $40,000 in the end. I mean, you already have systems in place so it's not like you'll be spending a fortune implementing anything. Consider it simply $40,000 in advertising...advertising in a medium you would normally not consider.