MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE OF XYZ GOVERNMENT AGENCY WITH THE BASIS OF MALCOLM BALDRIGE METHOD

Government agency is collective designation which includes work unit and organizational unit of ministries or departments, non-departmental government institution, secretariat of state high institution, and other central and regional government agencies; including state-owned enterprises, state-owned legal entities, and regional-owned enterprises. One of the very effective models in improving the quality of performance of an agency is by using the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. This research was conducted with the aim of: 1) measuring the performance of XYZ Government Agency so that their performance consistency can be monitored and 2) finding out the opportunities and obstacles in measuring the performance of XYZ Government Agency by using the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria. The type of this research is descriptive research that uses XYZ Government Agency as the research object. The measurement conducted in this research applies the Malcolm Baldrige method. The findings showed that the criteria with the highest percentage score is operation (39.8%) and the lowest percentage score is strategy (35.1%). The total score is 377.5 from a maximum score of 1000 points. It showed that the performance of XYZ Government Agency is at the level of “initial growth” (scale point of 376-475

Benchmarking business practices in Swedish manufacturing firms

Regional benchmarking studies were conducted on business practices in manufacturing plants in three regions in Sweden. The studies were designed to determine their use of best practices and thus enable firms to identify areas in which they need to make improvements. The questionnaire contained around 200 questions to which 452 firms responded. In analysing the results, questions and responses were grouped into six categories. Two indices were developed. The studies classified firms scoring high as leaders, and firms scoring low as laggers. The studies showed inter alia that the gap in performance between leaders and laggers is particularly wide in Information & benchmarking and Innovation & technology. Conclusions are that improving benchmarking processes is a strategic step towards improving the firm’s business practices.Benchmarking; business relations; strategy

Process Evaluation Insights on Program Implementation

This white paper has the explicit intention to draw lessons learned from the past 30 years of energy efficiency program evaluation in order to facilitate improved program design and implementation going forward. The discussion in this white paper is developed based on interviews with 43 individuals who are either practitioners or users of process and market evaluation. In addition, we obtained references to published materials from our contacts and reviewed conference proceedings dating from 1992 to 2008, which resulted in a review of nearly 100 articles or reports documenting the results of, or commenting on, process and market evaluations

An Economic Approach to Article 82

This report argues in favour of an economics-based approach to Article 82, in a way similar to the reform of Article 81 and merger control. In particular, we support an effects-based rather than a form-based approach to competition policy. Such an approach focuses on the presence of anti-competitive effects that harm consumers, and is based on the examination of each specific case, based on sound economics and grounded on facts

The "fuzzy front end" of innovation

The fast transformation of technologies into new products or processes is one of the core challenges for any technology-based enterprise. Within the innovation process, we believe, the early phases (fuzzy front end) to have the highest impact on the whole process and the result (Input-Output Process), since it will influence the design and total costs of the innovation extremely. However the Fuzzy Front End is unfortunately the least-well structured part of the innovation process, both in theory and in practice. The focus of the present chapter is on methods and tools to manage the fuzzy front end of the innovation process. Firstly, the activities, characteristics, and challenges of the front end are described. Secondly, a framework of the application fields for different methods and tools is presented: Since a product upgrade requires a different approach compared to radical innovation, where the market is unknown and a new technology is applied, we believe such a framework to be useful for practitioners. Thirdly, a selection of methods and tools that can be applied to the fuzzy front end are presented and allocated within the framework. The methods selected here address process improvements, concept generation, and concept testing. --fuzzy front end,innovation management,stage-gate process,frontloading,triz,dsm-matrix,lead user

Sustainable R&D portfolio assessment.

Research and development portfolio management is traditionally technologically and financially dominated, with little or no attention to the sustainable focus, which represents the triple bottom line: not only financial (and technical) issues but also human and environmental values. This is mainly due to the lack of quantified and reliable data on the human aspects of product/service development: usability, ecology, ethics, product experience, perceived quality etc. Even if these data are available, then consistent decision support tools are not ready available. Based on the findings from an industry review, we developed a DEA model that permits to support strategic R&D portfolio management. We underscore the usability of this approach with real life examples from two different industries: consumables and materials manufacturing (polymers).R&D portfolio management; Data envelopment analysis; Sustainable R&D;