2014 Baldrige Award in Your Future? Time to Apply!

This post originally appeared on NIST Baldrige Award.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2014 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest Presidential honor for performance excellence. Organizations can apply for awards in three business sectors—manufacturing, small business and service—along with health care, education and nonprofit (including government agencies).

Forms and guidance for applying for the 2014 Baldrige Award are now available from the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (BPEP) at www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/how_to_apply.cfm.

All applicants will be evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas defined by the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence: leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; operations focus; and results. To purchase the 2013-2014 Criteria, go to www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/criteria.cfm.

For the 2014 award cycle, the BPEP has eliminated a former limit on the number of subunits of an organization that may apply within the same year. In previous competitions, this limit was based on the size of the parent organization’s workforce. The lifting of this restriction enables multiple subunits to apply for the award in the same year if the parent organization is not applying and neither the organization nor the subunit has received the Baldrige Award within the past five years.

All other award eligibility rules—including the requirement that applicants, with few exceptions, must have received top-level recognition from an Alliance for Performance Excellence member program before seeking the national honor—remain in effect for 2014. The alliance is a body made up of more than 30 state, local, regional and sector-specific Baldrige-based programs serving nearly all of the United States. To determine whether or not an organization is qualified to compete for the Baldrige Award, go to www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/eligible.cfm.

Good news for all organizations is that application fees for the 2014 Baldrige Award cycle will remain at 2013 levels. The fees, which were established based on benchmarks of other national quality programs, are listed at www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/award_fees.cfm.

Applicants for the 2014 award must submit eligibility forms to the BPEP by April 1, 2014 (February 18 if also submitting a nomination to the Board of Examiners). Application forms are due by May 13, 2014 (April 29 if submitting on CD only).

The Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987. The BPEP is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in cooperation with the private sector. The Baldrige Award is not given for specific products or services. Since 1988, 102 Baldrige Awards have been presented to 96 organizations (with six repeat winners).

For more information on the BPEP and the Baldrige Award, see www.nist.gov/baldrige. For assistance with applying for the 2014 award, call the Award Process Hotline at 1-877-237-9064, option 3.