During the last decade, the Baldrige has aided U.S. industry in learning how to improve its processes, says Martin Mariner, vice president of quality for Corning Inc. and support team leader for the board of directors of the Baldrige Foundation. A nonprofit organization, the foundation has raised more than $15 million to help fund activities associated with the Baldrige process. "Other countries blew past us in the '80s," recalls Mariner. "We caught up and became world leaders, and now others are benchmarking from us."

The Baldrige program has developed a perception of quality and integrity, notes Barry Rogstad, chairman of the Baldrige Award's Board of Overseers, which monitors the award's processes and procedures as well as the program's mission and legislative mandates. "It's a recognized best achiever," he adds. "That's a reputation you don't develop easily. I've developed a greater appreciation for how useful applying for the Baldrige is to a company."

The Baldrige Award also has encouraged cooperation in the competitive U.S. business community. "I think the award's greatest impact has been the criteria and sharing," comments Harry Hertz, director of the National Quality Program and the Baldrige Award since 1991. The Baldrige criteria represents the leading edge of validated management practice, resulting from the criteria's yearly analysis and improvement process, says Hertz.

This could be considered an evolutionary achievement. Several years ago, the criteria underwent a shift from focusing strictly on quality to considering performance excellence for organizations as a whole. Then, just last year, a bigger shift occurred: The award moved from process-oriented quality management to the more philosophical quality of management.

In 1995, the Baldrige Award program launched pilot programs in education and health care. The pilots developed case studies for the two industries by networking with health care and education professionals across the country, and writing and distributing industry-specific Baldrige criteria. In the 1995 pilot program, 65 organizations -- 19 in education and 46 in health care -- submitted applications; each applicant received written feedback on its performance management system. In all, more than 30,000 copies of the 1995 pilot criteria have been distributed.

"We recognized several years ago that two areas are key to our country competing in a worldwide economy," explains Mariner. "One is education. Almost anyone in Congress will attest that education sits high on his or her agenda. Health care is in exactly the same place. It's an enormous cost to private industry as well as our gross national product."

Can the Baldrige serve as a revitalizing factor for these two sectors in the same way it has helped quality in U.S. industry? Rogstad believes the prospects are excellent.

"Business involvement in education has been my hobby for seven or eight years," Rogstad admits. "I view the Baldrige Award as a nonthreatening catalyst for businesses and school systems to get together on a common agenda, and I think the same thing could happen in the health care arena."

The Baldrige process, Rogstad contends, could help educators and administrators understand the interaction of their many and varied tasks. "It's very difficult to work in sync when people aren't used to thinking that way," he says. "Regardless of the particular education reform that interests you, ask yourself whether having better process management, goal setting, contact with customers, human resources, strategic planning integration and information systems alignment would enhance any education proposal."

Another enthusiastic proponent of the Baldrige expansion is Franklin Schargel, president of Schargel Consulting Group, an educational consulting firm. Schargel served as assistant principal at New York's Westinghouse High School when he became interested in quality management. Westinghouse is a culturally diverse inner-city school with a student population of 1,800, an estimated two-thirds of which live at or below the poverty level.

Schargel used quality management principles at his school -- with impressive results. The dropout rate fell to almost nothing, daily attendance rose, union grievances almost disappeared and parent-teacher involvement skyrocketed. In 1994, Schargel wrote Transforming Education Through Total Quality Management: A Practitioner's Guide. He also served on the guidelines development committee for the Baldrige Award's 1995 education pilot.

"We wanted to make it user-friendly because educational institutions had very little understanding or background in quality management," recalls Schargel of the 1995 education criteria. "The language was very user-friendly, specifically for colleges and universities. Part of it was based on the original New York State Excellence Award."

The Baldrige Award possesses several advantages that will help education in its quality quest, believes Schargel. "The award offers a framework that is well-understood and applied by the business community," he observes. "It isn't school-based management and shared decision making, which the business community doesn't comprehend.

"We must develop some sort of systemic change operation. Education is a mosaic. We tend to believe that changing a piece in the mosaic will improve the entire mosaic. But not all change is positive. We really shouldn't be talking about change in education; we should be talking about improvement in education. And the best form of that is systemic improvement.

"Quality comes into existence because of crisis. Education is in crisis, especially K-12. We're looking for a quick fix, which is very short-sighted."

Like education, health care is facing its own problems, especially with regard to customer service and escalating costs. "All of us in health care -- and in every industry in America -- need to improve the quality of the products and services we provide and reduce the cost at the same time," acknowledges Robert Waller, president and CEO of the Mayo Foundation, headquartered in Rochester, Minnesota. "Therefore, we need a set of tools to help us do that. Other industries in corporate America have improved the quality of their products and services exponentially during the last decade. Many of them use the Baldrige process. It's not the panacea; it's not the absolute answer to everything, but as a self-assessment tool, it helps them understand what they must do to improve their products and services and lower their costs.

"We all dream of making high-quality, low-cost health care accessible to every American citizen. If the Baldrige Award can help us get there, I think we ought to be for it. Will the Baldrige process be the only tool in the tool box? No. Is it worthwhile extending it into health care? I believe it is because it has worked in the corporate world."

"The award should recognize organizations that are working on quality improvement. They should be nominated by customers and, after a brief results-oriented examination, be given some recognition."

Crosby points to other famous awards, such as the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, for which no one can nominate themselves. "These are respected because there's no way to get them except by results," argues Crosby. "The Baldrige isn't about results; it's about completing forms and writing procedures. All around the country, the awards that copied it are losing steam.

"Management is turning away from those who think this approach builds organizations. The Baldrige will rank with the Good Conduct Medal in five years."

Self-nomination doesn't detract from what organizations can gain, counters Mariner. "People subject themselves to this award process because they're getting very valuable feedback," he says. "They do it for self-improvement and continuous improvement motives. You don't get it just by nominating yourself: You have to successfully go through the process and be examined and judged exemplary."

Waller concurs. "I know people criticize the Baldrige process in the corporate world, but it's hard to refute the desire to find every tool possible to improve quality and lower cost," he observes.

There is no current discussion of expanding the Baldrige into any other areas, says Rogstad, although he believes that the award would be beneficial to government. "Secretary Daley said he's using the Baldrige process within the Commerce Department," reveals Rogstad.

Mariner also doesn't foresee the award program extending to any new areas outside of health care and education, at least for the short term. "I think now that we have criteria for the private sector, service, health care and education, we have almost everything covered," he says.

The Baldrige Foundation has three goals of its own relating to the award's future, continues Mariner. The first is getting Congress to adopt health care and education, and subsequently establishing the two categories. The second is securing private funding from the health care and education sectors to provide for the categories' long-term continuous improvement. And third, increasing the number of applications.

"Even though the states receive hundreds of applications each year, it's important to continue developing a world-class, national model," maintains Mariner. "Currently, Congress allows us to give two awards in each category. We'd like to increase that so we can recognize more quality organizations. If five companies apply, and three of them are at that top level, then we should recognize all three."

A recent survey of CEOs has convinced Baldrige supervisors that global competition will be important to the award, relates Mariner. "The survey results focused on the ways the criteria has moved to business or performance excellence," he explains. "One of the survey points was the move toward a global economy, which then drives the need for a global strategy and implementation. The CEOs felt comfortable with developing a strategy, but they felt less comfortable with implementing it."

Roger Ackerman, the Baldrige Foundation's president, says his personal goals for the award and the foundation focus on its expansion and survival. "We have a very high priority to keep the thing healthy," he emphasizes. "Our real goal is to expand."

Asked if he thinks the Baldrige will still exist in 10-20 years, Ackerman says he thinks it will. "There's a tremendous amount of support in the industry," he observes. "Benchmarking is the main thing the award offers. Once companies get involved, they keep going."

Hertz's long-term goals for the award include expanding into nonprofit and government sectors, as well as trade associations. He also wants to expand the award program's research and outreach capabilities to include case studies, primers, statistical correlation and research resources.

"The biggest challenge the program faces organizationally is ensuring that the criteria reflect forefront practices so the award helps with performance excellence," notes Hertz. "We need to make it relevant to the community it serves." Hertz cites globalization and innovations in knowledge management as future priorities.

If its first decade offers any indication, the Baldrige Award's future will prove both interesting and controversial. It also holds the promise of continued process and quality improvement for businesses throughout the United States. While questions may arise concerning the award's real value, its unique self-assessment process continues to command respect among industries nationwide. And, if the award can inspire education and health care in a time of crisis -- as it has done for other industries -- then the United States may be on the verge of an era of very positive change.