"This bill's passage means that education and health care organizations now will be full partners in the Baldrige National Quality Program, including applying to receive the Baldrige Award and sharing best practices with schools and health care providers around the country," says Commerce Secretary William M. Daley.

Establishing the new categories required several years of persistent effort by the Baldrige Office and its private-sector partner, the Baldrige Foundation. President Clinton's 1998 budget request included money to expand the award. However, Congress rejected the funding request because the original 1987 legislation that created the Baldrige Award stipulated giving awards in only three categories: large manufacturing, small business and service.

Despite not receiving money to give new awards, at the start of this year the Baldrige Office went forward with plans to release health care and education performance criteria. The criteria, based on a pilot health care and education program NIST conducted in 1995, were funded with help from the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs.

For the 1999 budget, President Clinton again requested funding for the new categories to become actual awards. At the same time, Sen. William Frist of Tennessee introduced a Senate authorization bill to include health care and education, along with the original three categories, in an updated version of the award's original legislation. With the legislation reworked, Congress was willing to grant the money.

"Enormous progress has been made this year," says Martin Mariner, leader of the support team to the Baldrige Foundation's board of directors. "It has been a concerted effort to share with Congress the importance of adding health care and education to the Baldrige effort."

The Baldrige Foundation has so far raised $15 million to help fund the Baldrige program, says Mariner. He adds that the foundation is now in the process of raising an additional $15 million for the health care and education categories.

NIST's other important 1999 budget highlights include:

 $280.1 million for Scientific and Technical Research Services.

 $203.5 million for the Advanced Technology Program, including $66 million for new awards in FY 1999.

 $106.8 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

 $56.7 million for improving NIST's 30- to 45-year-old research facilities.

More than 300 representatives from U.S. companies, federal agencies, and trade and professional associations involved with developing and implementing standards attended the conference, held Sept. 23 in Washington, D.C. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the American National Standards Institute co-sponsored the conference as part of World Standards Day activities.

"The United States is the world's strongest competitor and best innovator," Deputy Secretary of Commerce Robert L. Mallett told attendees. "Yet we're jeopardizing our leadership position by not paying attention to measurements, standards and laboratory accreditation."

Participants voiced concern about the perceived trade barrier between the United States and Europe. "If we can't bring down trade barriers between the European Union and the United States -- two areas with much in common -- we can't expect to do so in areas where cultural and economic differences are much greater, like China, Japan and India," warned Dana Mead, World Standards Day chair.

Following the meeting, NIST Director Raymond Kammer and ANSI President Sergio Mazza signed a memorandum of understanding in which the two agencies formalized their commitment to enhance and strengthen the United States' voluntary standards system.

For more information, contact NIST at telephone (301) 975-4000 or ANSI at telephone (212) 642-4900.

This year's winners are:

 Large Company -- Coors Brewing Co.'s Golden Brewery Business Unit; Golden, Colorado. Coors' safety program consistently outperformed the rest of the brewing industry, but the company still found accident rates unacceptable. The company designed a continuous improvement process to change workplace behavior before accidents.

Between 1994 and 1998, lost work time dropped from 2.0 per 100 employees to 0.2 per 100, the total case incident rate dropped from 18.4 per 100 employees to 4.48, and the unit nearly reached 1 million work hours without lost time due to accidents.

 Medium Company -- New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.; Fremont, California. Last year, NUMMI -- a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors -- went from producing the 1997 model-year Toyota Corolla and Chevrolet Prizm to the vehicles' redesigned versions. The 54-member assembly project team spent 18 months preparing and implementing the model change.

 The results: NUMMI needed only a five-day shutdown to retool for the new models, full production volume was reached in 30 days, the new vehicles' quality exceeded the older versions by nearly 50 percent, and assembly team members' safety improved by 79 percent over the previous model change. Team members have subsequently created a software program to help guide future model changes.

 Small Company -- Midwest Industries Inc.; Ida Grove, Iowa. Midwest Industries manufactures boat trailers and boat hoists. The company formed a task team to research a new product's potential markets. The team examined and improved each step of the process as it went along. The project also challenged everyone in the company to rethink the ways they conducted business. By project's end, the team met all design specifications and delivered the product on-time. Midwest Industries has started other large projects using this same product-development process.

Four years ago, this work began when FORO, a Spanish think tank, contacted Franklin Schargel, an American educator and consultant, regarding his work implementing ISO 9000 in public schools. FORO group members visited Schargel at New York's Westinghouse High School to see that school's progress. Schargel then went to Spain, visiting 43 schools -- public, private and technical -- at various competency levels. Eventually, 16 schools took on the ISO challenge. Three of the schools are now ISO 9000-certified, with the rest expecting certification by year's end.

Basque schools face many of the same problems as their U.S. counterparts. "It's not a people problem," insists Schargel. They need systemic change. That's the ultimate answer."

One of first projects Schargel guided the Basque schools through, an articulation program, sought to increase parental involvement in the process. The schools saw a dramatic increase in parent participation, from 63 to 91 percent. The schools have since formed steering committees and student councils, and are now determining measures for improved student learning. The schools are also considering Baldrige Award-based programs for long-term growth and improvement.

The next important step for the Basque schools is to bring quality principles into the classroom itself, explains Schargel. "Unless it happens in the classroom, in reality it's not happening," he maintains.

The reason the British outcomplain the rest of Europe should be no surprise, considering that survey respondents also listed the UK's customer service record rates as Europe's worst.

European survey participants rated the United States No. 1 in customer service, followed by France, Italy and Germany.

Each country offered different definitions of good service, according to the survey. In Germany, consumers are more concerned that service staff have the knowledge to answer questions. Italians hold that courtesy is the most important aspect of customer service, while in the United Kingdom, information is most valued, with politeness second.

TL 9000, previously titled TS 9000, is a common set of quality system requirements for suppliers of telecommunication systems, hardware, software and services. Built upon currently used industry standards, the requirements include the ISO 9000 series of international standards. TL 9000 includes the requirements for registrars and accreditors, as well as for suppliers.

The TL 9000 requirements were established by a group of telecommunications service providers and suppliers, known as the Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications Leadership Forum, or QuEST. The QuEST Forum includes Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Bell Canada and other top telecommunications suppliers. QuEST has requested that the American National Standards Institute-Registrar Accreditation Board's National Accreditation Program establish a process for qualifying its accredited registrars to offer registration to the TL 9000 requirements.

As of July 1998, Japan has 1,018 ISO 14001 certifications, nearly twice that of its nearest competitor, the United Kingdom, which has 650. Other nations in the top 10 include Germany (630), Sweden (289), the Netherlands (260), South Korea (247), Switzerland (245), Taiwan (242), the United States (173) and Denmark (150).

In all, 5,147 ISO 14001 certifications have been granted in 55 countries, according to the report, conducted by Reinhard Peglau of Germany's Federal Environmental Agency.

Reprinted with permission of ISO 9000 News, September/October 1998.

Torres, CEO of Yazaki-Torres Manufacturing Inc., received the Walter L. Hurd Executive Medal, given each year to a president, CEO or chairman of the board who best represents the quality role model for other executives in the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions. Besides personally leading the quality processes within Yazaki-Torres Manufacturing, Torres has worked to advance the quality movement in the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region.

Yoshio Kondo, professor emeritus at Kyoto University, was awarded the Harrington/Ishikawa Medal, given annually to a quality professional for outstanding contributions to promoting quality technologies. Kondo, who has been active in improving the quality of major companies around the world, is also the International Academy for Quality's chairman of the board.

For more information on the award and the Walter L. Hurd Foundation, contact H. James Harrington, Hurd Foundation chairman, at telephone (408) 947-6587.

Andrew E. Schwartz, president of management development firm A.E. Schwartz & Associates, has good advice for new managers. From his company's training program, called "The School for Managers," Schwartz offers the following tips for those managers just getting started:

 Don't expect too much too soon -- Managerial positions require new skills and ways of thinking. Give yourself time to learn how to carry out your new role.

 Follow the Golden Rule -- Commit to managing subordinates as you would like to be managed.

 Admit your mistakes -- Set a good example by taking responsibility and fixing what went wrong.

 If you don't know, say so -- You'll be surprised by the respect you'll generate from saying, "I don't know." However, be quick to follow those words with, "but I'll find out."

 Know your role -- It's essential that you know your department's role and how it fits into the organization's mission.

 Learn how to juggle responsibilities -- Managers must deal with missed deadlines, conflicting priorities and office politics.