On the MESA website, in our magazine advertising, in our newsletter and as our customers are talking with us, the buzz around MESA has been about the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Some folks might say, "so what?" while others are saying, "what is this thing, anyway?" We thought it might be appropriate to talk a bit about what this award is - not so much so our customers would understand why we are proud of being a recipient but more about why MESA selected the Baldrige criteria as our roadmap for performance excellence and about the outcome of this decision on our business.

First of all, what is it? The Baldrige Award is given by the President of the United States to businesses - manufacturing and service, small and large - and to education and health care organizations who apply and are judged to be outstanding in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results.

Congress established the award program in l987 to recognize U.S. organizations for their achievements in quality and performance and to raise awareness about the importance of quality and performance excellence as a competitive edge. The award is not given for specific products or services.

Secondly, why did MESA select Baldrige criteria for performance excellence as the means for helping our organization improve? The criteria are designed to help organizations improve their performance by focusing on two goals: delivering ever improving value to customers and improving the organization's overall performance. The Baldrige concept is a holistic approach to improvement - it is not just a tool. By adopting the Baldrige criteria, we have been able to examine our performance and improvement in key business areas: customer satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resources, supplier and partner performance and operational performance.

Finally, what are the real gains obtained while on the quest to winning this award? The real gains are improved business processes that mean reliability for our customers because of high quality, better service and long-term stability.