European Foundation For Quality Management Excellence Model Research Articles

TQM dimensions and their interrelationships in ISO certified engineering institutes of India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the dimensions of TQM, analyse interrelationships and their combined influence on results achieved in ISO certified engineering institutes in India.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on the questionnaire survey of a sample of 216 faculty members serving in various ISO certified institutes of southern states of India. The data were obtained using a questionnaire that is in line with the self‐assessment philosophy of European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM). The dataset was subjected to exploratory factor analysis using SPSS17.0 program for Windows. The confirmatory and causal analyses were carried out using AMOS 16.0 software.FindingsThe factor analysis confirmed the existence of ten important dimensions of TQM that guide ISO institutes in their quality journey. Structural equation modelling was used to validate the developed TQM model. Leadership of top management was the main driving force for establishing an effective quality management system (QMS) in engineering institutes.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation is related to the notion of causality. The study has considered perception data for the predictive analysis.Practical implicationsThe paper unfolds ten important TQM factors that need attention from education administrators to manage quality in engineering education. The six enablers of the proposed TQM model significantly influence result criteria. The results obtained in this study encourage academic leaders to implement TQM concepts in their institutes to achieve a higher level of stakeholder satisfaction.Originality/valueThe paper is a new contribution to broad understanding of TQM concepts and their impact on performance measures in engineering education in India.

A Decision Model for Selecting of Areas for Improvement in EFQM Model

To monitor the progress towards business excellence, thousands of organizations across the world use self-assessment on a regular basis. There are a few popular business excellence models that provide standard criteria against which an organization can measure its performances. European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) is the most popular ones. The EFQM Excellence Model was introduced at the beginning of 1992 as the framework for assessing organizations for the European Quality Award. It is now the most widely used organizational framework in Europe and across the world and it has become the basis for the majority of international, national and regional Quality Awards. It is a practical tool that can be used as a guide to identify areas for Improvement. However, the current EFQM model has some drawbacks and problems which are not able to identify the priorities in Area for Improvement (AFI). For organizations with limitations of time, budget and resources and cannot implement all the Area for Improvement, some standards or indexes and limitations should be defined for prioritizing and choosing the Area for Improvement. Using Topsis 1 method which is one of the multi-attribute decision making model, the Area for Improvement can be identified. Therefore, this work will develop a method of evaluating, assessing and determining the Area for Improvement in the EFQM model. The results showed that the developed model is more valid and acceptable and the experts verified the model for selecting of Area for Improvement in EFQM in practice. The proposed model was employed in a case study and drawn out results from it and were evaluated from different points of view.

A new fuzzy multicriteria decision making approach: An application for European Quality Award assessment

European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Award is Europe’s most prestigious award for organizational business excellence. The award is given to the best performing not-for-profit organizations in Europe. The assessments of award are achieved by using EFQM Excellence Model. The aim of this study is to propose a new integrated approach based on a new analytic hierarchy process and EFQM Model to evaluate the business performance excellence. The proposed method enables experts use different fuzzy scales to evaluate firms according to EFQM Excellence Award scoring system. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, a case study is given. A four level hierarchy is established and four experts evaluate firms. Finally, the global weights of the firms are obtained to rank them. The proposed method is also compared with fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and the obtained results confirm that the proposed method effectively evaluates firms for EFQM Excellence Award.

Quality awards and excellence models in Africa: An empirical analysis of structure and positioning

This study analyses the internal dimensions of African quality awards and excellence models, comparing these distinctions to one another and to both the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM EM). The empirical analysis revealed similarities and differences both among them and with respect to the aforementioned major awards. The awards were also measured against a theoretically ideal or universal model. The conclusions drawn from the findings provide the business community and legislators with practical advice on how these awards can provide African companies with management tools that ensure their survival through in-house skill development. Key words: Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM), quality awards, universal quality model.

Including sustainability in business excellence models

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adequacy of business excellence models (BEMs) to address corporate sustainability, which is conceptualised in terms of economic, social, and environmental bottom lines. How organisations may manage corporate sustainability in the absence of a comprehensive sustainability management system standard is also explored. A survey of literature has been carried out. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (BCPE) are analysed with regard to their considerations of sustainability. The findings reveal that while triple bottom-line considerations are addressed to some extent in the studied BEMs, the models per se do not comprehensively address sustainability issues and economic prosperity remains a dominant consideration. Suggestions for the improvement of the EFQM excellence model and BCPE are discussed. To provide a comprehensive approach for addressing corporate sustainability, an integrated quality-sustainability framework is proposed. The essence of the framework is that sustainability indicators, such as those provided in the Global Reporting Initiative framework, could be integrated with core business processes using the structures and infrastructure provided by BEMs. The proposed improvements should be considered in future revisions of the EFQM excellence model and BCPE.

Designing fuzzy multi criteria decision making model for best selection of areas for Improvement in EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) model

In a growingly competitive business environment, numerous organizations adopt the total quality management (TQM) approach, to struggle for business excellence. To monitor the progress towards business excellence, thousands of organizations across the world use self-assessment on a regular basis. There are a few popular business excellence models, that provide standard criteria against which an organization can measure its performances. European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) is the most popular ones. The EFQM Excellence Model was introduced at the beginning of 1992, as the framework for assessing organizations for the European Quality Award. It is now the most widely used organizational framework in Europe and across the world and it has become the basis for the majority of international, national and regional Quality Awards. It is a practical tool that can be used as a guide to identify areas for Improvement. However, the current EFQM model has some drawbacks and problems which are not able to identify the priorities in Area for Improvement (AFI). For organizations with limitations of time, budget and resources and that cannot implement all the AFIs, some standards or indexes and limitations should be defined for prioritizing and choosing the AFIs. Using fuzzy multi criteria decision making model, the AFIs’ can be identified. Therefore, this work will develop a more comprehensive method of evaluating, assessing and determining the AFIs’ in the EFQM model. The results showed that, the new comprehensive developed model is more valid and acceptable and the experts verified the model for selecting of AFIs’ in EFQM in practice. The developed model was used in a case study and extracted results from it and were analyzed from different points of view. Key words: European quality award, EFQM, business excellence model, area for improvement, fuzzy logic, fuzzy multi criteria decision making.

Achieving Business Excellence Prize: The Case Of Trimo Trebnje d.d.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a global realization of the strategic importance of quality, and many countries established programmes to recognize quality and excellence. Companies pursuing an excellence strategy soon recognized that the award frameworks offered more than just a vehicle for recognition. The frameworks were seen to be best-practice models for implementing excellence strategies, performing self-assessments, benchmarking and, ultimately, delivering improved performance. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we present the business excellence from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence model point of view. Second, we describe how employee results, customer results, and favourable society results are achieved through leadership driving policy and strategy, people, partnerships and resources, and processes, which ultimately lead to excellence in key performance results in a manufacturing company that won the 2002 Slovene National Quality Award based on the EFQM Excellence model.

Selection effective management tools on setting European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model by a quality function deployment (QFD) approach

EFQM Excellence model literature indicates that using the management tools that are relevant to the organization’s needs has become a strategic issue for companies in today’s competitive environment. By choosing and applying the best management tools among too many management tools, companies can improve their performances and then increase customer satisfaction and gain market shares. The aim of this research is to propose an original approach for the management tools selection based on the quality function deployment (QFD) approach, a methodology which has been successfully adopted in new products development. Specifically, the research addresses the issue of how to deploy the house of quality (HOQ) to effectively and efficiently improve management tools selection processes and thus company satisfaction about its excellence achievement. Fuzzy logic is also adopted to deal with the vagueness nature of the qualitative linguistic judgments required in the proposed HOQ. The model of this research has been tested by means of a real case application, which refers to an Iranian company operating in the automotive industry in this case the mixture of 15 categories of management tools with five EFQM enabler criteria has been characterized by using of the research model. And also the test of the hypothesis of this research has been done by using spearman correlation coefficient.

A proposed adaptation of the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model to physical activity programmes for the elderly - development of a quality self-assessment tool using a modified Delphi process

BackgroundThere has been a growing concern in designing physical activity (PA) programmes for elderly people, since evidence suggests that such health promotion interventions may reduce the deleterious effects of the ageing process. Complete programme evaluations are a necessary prerequisite to continuous quality improvements. Being able to refine, adapt and create tools that are suited to the realities and contexts of PA programmes for the elderly in order to support its continuous improvement is, therefore, crucial. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a self-assessment tool for PA programmes for the elderly.MethodsA 3-round Delphi process was conducted via the Internet with 43 national experts in PA for the elderly, management and delivery of PA programmes for the elderly, sports management, quality management and gerontology, asking experts to identify the propositions that they considered relevant for inclusion in the self-assessment tool. Experts reviewed a list of proposed statements, based on the criteria and sub-criteria from the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model (EFQM) and PA guidelines for older adults and rated each proposition from 1 to 8 (disagree to agree) and modified and/or added propositions. Propositions receiving either bottom or top scores of greater than 70% were considered to have achieved consensus to drop or retain, respectively.ResultsIn round 1, of the 196 originally-proposed statements (best practice principles), the experts modified 41, added 1 and achieved consensus on 93. In round 2, a total of 104 propositions were presented, of which experts modified 39 and achieved consensus on 53. In the last round, of 51 proposed statements, the experts achieved consensus on 19. After 3 rounds of rating, experts had not achieved consensus on 32 propositions. The resulting tool consisted of 165 statements that assess nine management areas involved in the development of PA programmes for the elderly.ConclusionBased on experts' opinions, a self-assessment tool was found in order to access quality of PA programmes for the elderly. Information obtained with evaluations would be useful to organizations seeking to improve their services, customer satisfaction and, consequently, adherence to PA programmes, targeting the ageing population.

Canonical correlation between job satisfaction and EFQM business excellence model

The extent to which employees are satisfied with what they are responsible for may directly influence the level of customer satisfaction with their services and products. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model as a common framework for quality management and organizational culture. The main purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between excellence model and job satisfaction. In order to achieve this goal, a survey that contains Job Descriptive Index and EFQM Criteria are applied to Turkish Quality Awards winners’ employees. Canonical correlation analysis is applied to the data set and the results show that the relationship between job satisfaction and EFQM Excellence Model was significant. According to the findings leadership, partnerships and resources, processes, policy and strategy, people development and involvement, supervision, results, promotion and coworkers are the determinants of the job satisfaction and EFQM Excellence Model. Results support previous research that advocate the vital role of the supervision and leadership. The strong relationship between job satisfaction and excellence model shows that organizations that implement business excellence models should praise job satisfaction which has a supporting role for the successful implementation.

The advantage of the EFQM excellence model in business management and leadership

Recently, more and more enterprises recognise the importance of the quality of products and services and business excellence. By gaining new markets and new customers in the world market, the enterprises meet numerous challenges, confrontations, new legislation and technology. Taking into account the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model, our research defines the endeavours of the enterprises that strive for better structure, behaviour and communication paths to reach the final customers, with emphasis on improved quality, higher competitiveness and customer satisfaction. In our research, we compare the enterprises holding a business excellence certificate with those that do not hold it. We establish that they differ in some characteristics of their management, which are defined by nine criteria. For years, several Slovene enterprises have been successfully selling their products to the industrially developed countries in Europe and to the USA. They are the first to develop and achieve high growth in their enterprises and, in turn, their own business excellence.

An empirical assessment of the EFQM Excellence Model: Evaluation as a TQM framework relative to the MBNQA Model

Total quality management (TQM) is an approach to management embracing both social and technical dimensions aimed at achieving excellent results, which needs to be put into practice through a specific framework. Nowadays, quality award models, such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model, are used as a guide to TQM implementation by a large number of organizations. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of empirical research confirming whether these models clearly reflect the main premises of TQM. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which the EFQM Excellence Model captures the main assumptions involved in the TQM concept, that is, the distinction between technical and social TQM issues, the holistic interpretation of TQM in the firm, and the causal linkage between TQM procedures and organizational performance. Based on responses collected from managers of 446 Spanish companies by means of a structured questionnaire, we find that: (a) social and technical dimensions are embedded in the model; (b) both dimensions are intercorrelated; (c) they jointly enhance results. These findings support the EFQM Excellence Model as an operational framework for TQM, and also reinforce the results obtained in previous studies for the MBNQA, suggesting that quality award models really are TQM frameworks.

Evaluación de los criterios satisfacción del cliente/paciente y satisfacción del personal/profesional

An evaluation of the Emergency Department (ED) of the Hospital de Cabueñes de Gijón (Spain) was performed, based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) criteria of patient and staff satisfaction with the aim of identifying areas that could be improved. The population studied consisted of physicians, nurses and nurses’ aids working in the ED analyzed in February 2000 and a randomly selected representative sample of patients attending the ED between October 2000 and March 2001. A descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective study was performed. A questionnaire was administered to staff and a telephone survey was carried out in patients. For the self-assessment, in February 2004 the criteria of client/patient and staff/professional satisfaction of the EFQM Excellence Model were applied. Based on the criteria evaluated, the results of this study showed an acceptable standard of quality in the ED studied. Fifteen strong points and 22 areas susceptible to improvement were identified.

The contribution to excellence of ISO 9001: the case of certified organisations in Cyprus

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify ISO 9001's contribution to the five enablers of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model.Design/methodology/approach – Empirical research was conducted in Cypriot ISO 9001 certified organizations to evaluate the motives that lead them to certification, the difficulties they faced during the standards' implementation and their performance improvement in the five enablers of the EFQM excellence model. Companies were asked to evaluate their performance in 85 issues related to these Enablers both before and after certification.Findings – The results of the survey indicate the “most” and the “least” important improvements from ISO 9001 certification in the five enablers of the EFQM excellence model. The results also prove that performance improvement is statistically significant in all enablers and it is also significantly related to the companies' motives for certification.Research limitations/implications – Future research shoul...

Assessing customer focus using the EFQM Excellence Model: a local government case

PurposeA critical problem for managers in South Staffordshire Council's one‐stop‐shop customer contact centre, known as South Staffordshire Solutions, was how to assess the achievement of “customer focus” in local services. The purpose of the paper is to view how managers adopted a model of self‐assessment to address the problem.Design/methodology/approachThe paper shows how the EFQM Excellence Model enabled managers to effectively self‐assess critical performance issues relating to customer focus. It also shows how the assessors used the fundamental concepts of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model to identify a range of service interrelationships affecting customers.FindingsThe paper finds that the assessors need to take account of the interrelationships between customer focus, results and learning to assess delivery of value to external customers. The EFQM Excellence Model provided South Staffordshire Council with an effective way of self‐assessing customer‐related issues.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that self‐assessment enabled managers in the customer contact centre to assess customer focus within the broader context of the Council's Balanced Scorecard commitment to enhancing performance under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA).Originality/valueIn this paper the assessors used the EFQM model to develop a narrative about sustained customer value creation by combining the fundamental concepts of the model with thinking about the unique value proposition offered to customers by the service.

A history and review of the European Quality Award Model

PurposeThrough the analysis of a crucial period of the history of quality in Europe – the creation of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the development of the European Quality Award – the author, who was a protagonist of the narrated events, aims to reveal some historical aspects that are generally ignored and that should explain some of the peculiarities of the award model. Taking stock of the present situation, some directions taken in the TQM/Excellence Model's development and use are questioned, and the author reasserts his views on the whole matter.Design/methodology/approachFor the historical part the author has based his research on public documents, EFQM Newsletters and internal documentation and personal correspondence with the protagonists of the events that are mentioned. The author will be glad to share with students who want to conduct research in this area his personal records. The following discussion is mostly based on the author's findings and experiences, compared with the most common practices.FindingsSince the purpose of the paper is to tell a story which the author was a protagonist of, to derive from it some lessons that are important for the future, the first part of the paper is dedicated to narrating those aspect of the European Quality Award Model's development that are crucial to understanding why such a model, initially developed following the Malcolm Baldrige Award scheme, suddenly changed dramatically. In this part the author relates some personal anecdotes to make the story more alive and complete. The second part of the paper presents the author's views on organisational improvement models and self‐assessment and explains why he believes that the present course should be changed, if the risk of negative impacts on quality development is to be avoided.Originality/valueThe paper tells a story of an out of the box approach that strongly affected the development of the European Quality Award Model, now the EFQM Excellence Model; and explains why, in the author's view, further innovation is needed in quality management, if we really want to pursue continuous organisational improvement.

Change of heart

North Kirklees, an urban area in the East of England, known to have a 6.8 percent incidence of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), embarked on a nurse-led CHD primary prevention service in order to improve residents' health. This paper seeks to investigate this serice. Keen to utilise the principles of performance management, the team applied the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model RADAR logic believing that it would strengthen their "results orientation". This paper investigates the results. Using RADAR, the team identified baseline data for CHD health indicators. The teams were then equipped to set targets for continuous improvement, thereby increasing their potential to progress local residents' health. The case-study findings enable others to adopt a similar approach in their pursuit of excellence. The CHD Primary Prevention team focused only on performance results in the first instance and did not look at other EFQM Excellence Model results areas. The paper describes an original case study into how nurses applied RADAR, which gives insight into the team's experiences during their 18-month journey.

Applying Leadership Criterion of the European Excellence model for achieving Quality Management in Higher Education Institutions

For institutions of higher education to be successful in the future, there is the need to deliver excellencein all its operations. This means that there is a real need to develop more effective and efficientinstitutional management practices (Steed et al., 2005). In order to reach this goal, many institutionsare turning to total quality management models such as the European Foundation for Qualitymanagement (EFQM) Excellence Model as an effective and practical tool to support improvementopportunities within higher education establishments. In an introductory text reproduced from the EFQMExcellence Model Higher Education Version (2003), the EFQM Excellence Model itself was to takeaccount of current management thinking, practices and working environment. Here, the Model isdefined as a practical tool to help organizations establish an appropriate management system bymeasuring where they are on the path to excellence, helping them to understand the gaps, and thenstimulate solutions confronting them. It is in this way that a model is seen to ensure quality and remainsdynamic (Steed et al., 2003: 307-319; EFQM Higher Education Version, 2003). According to Saraivaet al., (2003), among several approaches that can be used to guide the implementation of qualitymanagement principles in schools, one that has been followed with success involves the adoption ofexcellence models to support self-assessment practices and continuous improvement.

Evaluating treatment process redesign by applying the EFQM Excellence Model

To evaluate a treatment process redesign programme implementing evidence-based treatment as part of a total quality management in a Dutch addiction treatment centre. Quality management was monitored over a period of more than 10 years in an addiction treatment centre with 550 professionals. Changes are evaluated, comparing the scores on the nine criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model before and after a major redesign of treatment processes and ISO certification. In the course of 10 years, most intake, care, and cure processes were reorganized, the support processes were restructured and ISO certified, 29 evidence-based treatment protocols were developed and implemented, and patient follow-up measuring was established to make clinical outcomes transparent. Comparing the situation before and after the changes shows that the client satisfaction scores are stable, that the evaluation by personnel and society is inconsistent, and that clinical, production, and financial outcomes are positive. The overall EFQM assessment by external assessors in 2004 shows much higher scores on the nine criteria than the assessment in 1994. Evidence-based treatment can successfully be implemented in addiction treatment centres through treatment process redesign as part of a total quality management strategy, but not all results are positive.

TQM Application through Self-Assessment and Learning: Some Experiences from Two EQA Applicants

Nowadays, TQM implementation through self-assessment application is gaining importance as a means of continuously improving the management of organizations, particularly since the introduction of international quality awards. The models underlying these awards consider the process of organizational learning as a fundamental factor for companies to become competitive in today's environments.Little attention has been given, however, to the relationship between self-assessment application and learning by the specialized literature. Therefore, the author's research attempts to shed light into this topic. This article analyzes the way in which self-assessment application based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model facilitates the process of organizational learning (while the EFQM Excellence Model is not broadly used by American firms, this work is not focused on the reference model itself but on the way in which companies employ such models to self-assess how good or bad they are). To reach such an objective, the author has developed an exploratory case study of two Spanish companies with a broad experience in self-assessment, constituting the results obtained through a preliminary theoretical framework in a research field still unexplored.