A detailed trends analysis of national quality awards world-wide

The market economies of the world today are becoming increasingly competitive. The implementation of quality assurance systems to improve product and service quality is no longer sufficient to ensure economic success. Outstanding organizations that have excellent quality and financial performances integrate their total quality management systems into their strategic plans. They continually benchmark and reassess their quality management systems. To assist organizations in checking on the performance of their implemented quality management systems, many quality promoting organizations in the world today have developed national quality award (NQA) programmes. The development of NQAs has a relatively short history (less than 10 years) in most parts of the world. Many countries have in fact yet to establish a NQA. This paper discusses the structure and content of 17 NQAs. Their evaluation criteria are analysed and differences are revealed and compared. Several guidelines are then offered to assist in the establishment, maintenance and refinement of national quality awards.