The movement towards total quality or performance excellence as the operating model for organisations is growing at an accelerated pace. This approach is applicable to organisations of all sizes, in the manufacturing, service, education and healthcare sectors.
In India, the criteria for performance excellence come in two avatars: The Malcolm Baldrige performance excellence criteria have been adopted for the IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award; and the European Quality Award criteria for the CII-Exim Business Excellence Award. In terms of core values, the two are similar.
Each of the two models emphasises that work flows horizontally across functions to the customer. This work, a process, should be managed efficiently in order to deliver quality outputs to the customer.