Applicants
ExcellenceNorth Alliance Award and Recognition Program Overview
ExcellenceNorth Alliance’s Recognition and Award Program recognizes New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont organizations for performance excellence. The program is based on the Criteria established in the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Recognition and Award Program is focused on supporting and recognizing all organizations in Northern New England in their continuous improvement journey.
The ExcellenceNorth Alliance Recognition and Award Program is a cost effective way to gain an unbiased, comprehensive, external perspective on you organization’s strengths and opportunities for improvement towards meeting its goals, including how to improve the bottom line. In addition, State-wide recognition demonstrates commitment to high performance based on the nation’s highest award for organizational excellence and may provide a competitive advantage.
The Award (Gold Level) recognizes organizations that demonstrate quality and performance excellence leadership at the multiple level of the Criteria for Performance Excellence. The Gold Level also meets the Baldrige Enterprise standards for top-level State awards, meaning that eligible recipients of the Gold Level may apply for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
The Recognition program recognize organizations just beginning and at various stages of their journey towards performance excellence. It consists of three levels:
- Profile Recognition: Recognizes organizations that demonstrate a foundation for quality and performance excellence through use of the Organizational Profile
- Commitment to Excellence (Bronze Level): Recognizes organizations that demonstrate processes that commit to quality and performance excellence at the basic level of the Criteria for Performance Excellence
- Achievement of Excellence (Silver Level): Recognizes organizations that demonstrate achievement of quality and performance excellence at the overall level of the Criteria for Performance Excellence
All Recognition Levels are non-competitive and all organizations that achieve the requirements for a Level will receive recognition. Organizations that do not achieve the Level applied for will be offered recognition at the Level achieved. While there is no limit on the number of recognitions that may be presented each year, there is also no requirement that any Awards or Recognitions have to be presented.
Click here for more information about the multi-level recognition and award structure. Contact us with any questions or to discuss if your organization can benefit from a Baldrige-based assessment and recognition.
Award and Recognition Schedule
2020 Recognition/Award Process Schedule:
Intent to Apply Due: September 1, 2020
Application Due: October 15, 2020
Review of Applications: November 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020
Site Visits (if applicable): Between March 1 and April 30, 2020
Feedback Reports Delivered: Between April 1 and May 31, 2020
Recognition Ceremony: May/June 2020
Materials:
See the following materials for detailed information on:
- the recognition levels, eligibility requirements, and pricing
- the Letter of Intent to Apply (Due September 1, 2020)
- The Criteria for Performance Excellence (2019-2020). ExcellenceNorth Alliance uses the same criteria used national Baldrige Program for its Award and Achievement of Excellence recognition level. See the links below for an overview of the Criteria or to purchase a copy. Contact us for information and guidance on using the Criteria for all recognition levels.
– Criteria for Performance Excellence (business/nonprofit)
– Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence
– Education Criteria for Performance Excellence
ExcellenceNorth Alliance Quality Award Benefits
- Positive impact on your operations and business results
- Increase market shareBenefits
- Increase revenues
- More and bigger customers
- PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) data shows a statistically reliable correlation
GAO report shows companies who have achieved a Baldrige site visit enjoy:
- Higher customer satisfaction ratings
- Higher operating satisfaction ratings
- Increased market share
- Increased sales per employee and return on assets
Benefits to the Community, State, and Region:
- Improved enterprises create more jobs
- Sharing of improvement ideas
- Sharing of benchmarking information
- Provides government a chance to recognize the good work done by organizations and their senior leaders
Award & Recognition Criteria
ExcellenceNorth Alliance uses the Baldrige Excellence Framework as the basis for its Award and Recognition Program. The Framework’s Criteria are the basis for selecting ExcellenceNorth Alliance Award & Recognition recipients and for providing feedback to applicants. In addition, the Criteria have three other important purposes.
- To help raise organizational performance standards and expectations;
- To facilitate communication and sharing among and within organizations of all types based upon a common understanding of key operational performance requirements; and
- To serve as a working tool for planning, training and assessment.
The Criteria is a set of interrelated, results-oriented requirements. However, the Criteria provides a wide latitude in approaches to meeting the requirements. Accordingly, the Criteria do not prescribe:
- Specific quality tools, techniques, technologies, systems, or starting points
- How the organization itself should be organized
The Criteria does require that these and many other basic factors be regularly evaluated as part of the organization’s improvement processes, since they are important and are likely to change as needs and strategies evolve.
The Criteria is nonprescriptive for three important reasons:
- The Criteria focuses on requirements that produce results and not on pre-set procedures, tools or organizational structures. Through this non-prescriptive approach, organizations are encouraged to develop and demonstrate creative, adaptive and flexible approaches to meeting basic requirements. The nonprescriptive nature of the requirements thus supports both incremental and major (“breakthrough”) improvement.
- Selection of tools, techniques, systems and organizations usually depend upon many factors such as business size, business type, the company’s stage of development, and employee capabilities.
- Focusing on outcomes that meet requirements rather than on specific procedures fosters better understanding, communication, and sharing, while encouraging diversity and creativity in approaches.
Criteria for Performance Excellence Goals
The Criteria are designed to help organizations enhance their competitiveness through focus on results-oriented goals:
- delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders
- improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities
- organizational and personal learning
Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework
The core values and concepts are embodied in seven Categories, as follows:
- Leadership
- Strategy
- Customers
- Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
- Workforce
- Operations
- Results
Recognition Recipients
Silver Recognition (Achievement of Excellence)
Bristol Health, Connecticut
Read the Press Release
Silver Recognition (Achievement of Excellence)
PeoplesChoice Credit Union, Maine
Read the Press Release
Profile Recognition
PeoplesChoice Credit Union, Maine
Profile Recognition
Chemtan Company, Inc., Exeter, NH
Achievement of Excellence Recognition
Phaneuf Funeral Homes and Crematorium, Manchester, NH
Profile Recognition
The City of Dover, NH
Achievement of Excellence Recognition
Boynton Middle School, New Ipswich NH
Profile* Recognition
Boynton Middle School, New Ipswich NH
*previously called Interest Recognition
Interest Recognition
Elliot Health System, Manchester NH
Assessment Recognition
Long Term Care Partners, Portsmouth NH
Keene State College – Physical Plant Department, Keene, NH
Interest Recognition
AMCOR PET Packaging
Granite State Quality Award
America’s Software Manufacturing
Commitment Recognition
Perot Systems Government Services (formerly ADI Technology)
Commitment Recognition
New Hampshire Department of Transportation, Concord, NH
Interest Recognition
NH Precision Metal Fabricators, Inc., Manchester, NH Resonetics Micromachining Technology, Nashua, NH
Assessment Recognition
Anheuser-Busch, Inc., Merrimack Brewery Quality Assurance Department, Merrimack, NH Kollsman, Inc., Merrimack, NH
Achievement Recognition
America’s Software Manufacturing, Nashua, NH
Northeast Delta Dental, Concord, NH
Commitment Recognition
The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester, NH
Achievement Recognition
Compaq-America’s Software Manufacturing, Nashua, NH
Interest Recognition
Laurier, Inc., Londonderry, NH
Commitment Recognition
New Hampshire Hospital, Concord, NH
Achievement Recognition
SUBMEPP (Dept. Of Navy affiliate), Portsmouth, NH APW-N.E. Operations, Hudson, NH
Granite State Quality Award
St. Joseph’s Hospital, Nashua, NH