World‐class operators: profiles of the 1994 Baldrige winners

Abstract

There are now 22 companies that have received the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and that scheme is held widely -maybe even globally -in such high regard that writers, including the author of this article, must now fight shy of the adjective "prestigious" while describing it: such a title, though undoubtably true, has become a cliché since Globe Metallurgical, Motorola,and Westinghouse's Commercial Nuclear Fuels went to the White House to receive their awards in 1988.It is tempting to say that last autumn's additions to the list mean there are three more winners, but that would be a serious underestimate. Certainly three companies -AT&T Consumer Communications Services, GTE Directories Corporation, and Wainwright Industries, Inc. -were added to the roll of honour, but that is a very small, though certainly very significant, part of the full picture.Tens of thousands of copies of the book of guidelines, outlining clearly the criteria for the award, have been printed and distributed on request, without charge; applications are received by the hundred, and scores of companies are visited and appraised by specially qualified examiners before just a handful -to date, never less than two nor more than five in a year -receive the gold-plated medallion in its handsome aluminium and crystal stand. But many of the companies who fail to make it to an examination are winners too; many, not just in the USA, have internal quality awards -"mini-Baldriges" -based on the official, and readily available, Baldrige criteria. Others again, better placed in the running, will put in an application knowing that for their relatively modest application fee (US$4,000 for the manufacturing and service companies, just US$1,200 for small businesses) they will receive a written feedback report of some 30plus pages, packed with practical suggestions and areas for improvement: this alone is deemed by many to be excellent value. Shortlisted companies who receive a site visit pay somewhat more, but receive superb value for money even if the investment is viewed as consultancy alone.Of course, we must never -especially in the pages of this publication -overlook the customer. Customer focus and satisfaction is a key category of the award scheme and is worth up to 250 points from a total of 1,000 for the entire examination process; no single category is worth more. Without doubt, then, 20

Manufacturing best practices in Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

“…The authors found that some of the researcher mentioned about the same area of manufacturing practices towards performance. The eight areas were related to quality (Ahire et al, 1996;Taninecz, 1997;Kasul and Motwani, 1995), management (Solis et al, 2001;Kasul and Motwani, 1995;Collins et al, 1996;Sohal, 1998;Lagace and Bourgault, 2003), human resources development (HRD) (Rao et al, 1999;O'Sullivan et al, 2002;Taylor, 1995;Solis et al, 2001), marketing strategy (Boone and Kurtz, 2005;Gooze and Harms, 2006), production process (Lagace and Bourgault, 2003;Grando and Belvedere, 2005), technology and product innovation (Collins et al, 1996;Grando and Belvedere, 2005), supply chain management (SCM) (Corbett, 1998;Stevenson, 2005) and customer focus (Kasul and Motwani, 1995;Taylor, 1995;Jasri, 2003). The respondents were asked to rank from a scale of 1 -being the least implemented/practiced to 5 -as the most implemented/practiced.…”

“…Customer focus Time delivery Kasul and Motwani (1995), Taylor (1995) and Jasri (2003) Customer satisfaction Customer retention Deming (1986) cited in Agus and Hassan (2001)…”

“…Top management commitment Kasul and Motwani (1995) and Solis et al Beamon (1999) Vendor and material management, inventory levels and quality of the materials Kasul and Motwani (1995) Human resource development Skill development Taylor (1995) and Solis et al (2001) Giving rewards and employee satisfaction Rao et al (1999), Cassell (2002) Production process Production process flexibility Lagace and Bourgault (2003) and Grando and Belvedere (2005)…”

“…Cooperation between co-workers to get the job done had the highest mean of 3.58 compared to the other practices within HRD practices. Empowering the employees through skill development activities such as performing a task as a team will develop an encouraging workplace environment (Taylor, 1995).…”