Tracing evolution of EFQM and its relationship with Industry 4.0

EFQM is one of the popular business excellence modelling frameworks and is globally accepted in several countries to motivate organisations to formulate strategies for the continual improvement of organisational processes leading to excellence. This paper tracks the historical evolution of the EFQM model and dissects the model to its most fundamental elements for analysis and synthesis. The paper aims at understanding the process of evolution of the EFQM model and identifying the major changes in the new EFQM model (2020). In the second stage, an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the EFQM 2020 vis-a-vis the EFQM 2012 model is presented. Lastly, the relationship between EFQM and Industry 4.0 is presented. The research brought to the fore several interesting findings which include the changes in the criteria and sub-criteria of the model over the time. The research points out that the EFQM model is moving towards a generic model with a focus on the futuristic requirements of the organisations rather than merely a business excellence model and/or just a quality award enablement model. The research has been carried out based on the current understanding and available information.