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Twenty organizations have submitted applications for the 2020 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. They include 11 health care organizations, 6 nonprofit organizations, 2 small businesses, and 1 education organization. Despite the difficult circumstances faced by many organizations this spring, the 2020 Baldrige Award applicants demonstrate the ongoing relevance and value of the Baldrige Excellence Framework to the performance of organizations of a variety of sectors, sizes, and states across the nation.
The Baldrige Award process is set to begin later this month. Members of the all-volunteer board of Baldrige examiners will work virtually in teams for ten weeks, assessing each of the award applicants against the 2019-2020 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. The assessment criteria address an organization’s leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce; operations; and results. Baldrige examiners traditionally have provided each applicant annually with 500 to 1,000 hours of review and a detailed report on the organization’s strengths and opportunities for improvement.
In August, the Judges Panel for the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (BPEP) is scheduled to determine which organizations will receive site visits by examiner teams to verify information in their applications and clarify questions that come up during the review. From those site-visited organizations, the Baldrige Award recipients each year are traditionally selected and announced by the Secretary of Commerce in November.
In conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the private sector, the Baldrige Program manages the Baldrige Award. The program raises awareness about the importance of performance excellence in driving the U.S. and global economy; provides organizational assessment tools and criteria; and develops and educates leaders in all types of organizations about the practices of national role models.
Thousands of organizations worldwide use the Baldrige framework and Criteria, which are regularly revised to reflect leading practices, to guide their operations, improve performance, and get sustainable results. This proven improvement and innovation framework offers organizations an integrated leadership guide to key management areas, including strategy, operations, data and information, and results.
The Baldrige Award is not given for specific products or services. Since 1988, 129 awards have been presented to 121 organizations (including eight two-time award recipients). Visit the Baldrige Program for more information.