Discuss BNQA, why it was developed, who has won the award, pros and cons of the award and the future successes of winning organizations.

by Blogger of NepalFebruary 03, 20150 Comments
BNQA stands for “Baldrige National Quality Award”, named after Balcome Baldrige. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was established by Congress in 1987 to enhance US competitiveness by promoting quality awareness, recognizing quality achievements of US companies, and publicizing successful performance strategies. BNQA is the national quality award that recognizes U.S. organizations in the business, health care, education, and nonprofit sectors for performance excellence. This award generally promotes awareness of performance excellence as an increasingly important element in competitiveness. (Baldrige Award Recipient Information, 2014)
This award is given to those companies who fight to fulfill the criteria set by BNQA. The awards were granted to six eligibility categories:
  • Manufacturing
  • Service
  • Small business
  • Education
  • Health care
  • Non profit

The 2014 Baldrige Award recipients—listed with their category—are:

  • PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice, McLean, Va. (service)
  • Hill Country Memorial, Fredericksburg, Texas (health care)
  • St. David’s HealthCare, Austin, Texas (health care)
  • Elevations Credit Union, Boulder, Colo. (nonprofit)


Purpose of BNQA:
  • Quality Enhancement.
  • Improving Quality performance of American product/services.
  • To help Organizations assess their improvement efforts, diagnose their overall performance etc.
  • To identify Baldrige Award recipients that will serve as role models for other companies.

BNQA Pros:
  • It helps company to conduct SWOT analysis. Companies can better understand their strength, weakness, opportunities and threats.
  • It helps enhance quality performance of product/services
  • Improves organizational performances, capabilities, efforts and management systems
  • It provides opportunities for Organization to continuously learn.

BNQA Cons:
  • This award is limited only to US companies. No other foreign companies can participate.
  • It can create doubt; does organization continuous to maintain the same quality after receiving this award too?

Thus, BNQA improves organization performance practices, capabilities and results. This award facilitates communication and sharing of information on best practices among the US organizations of all types. It serves as a tool for understanding and managing performances and also guides planning and opportunities for learning.

References:
Baldrige Award Recipient Information. (2014, 09 20). Retrieved from www.patapsco.nist.gov: http://patapsco.nist.gov/Award_Recipients/index.cfm
Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.nist.gov/baldrige/.

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