The Quality Journey

Résumé du livre

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was created by Congress in 1987 to recognize the achievement of the highest standards of quality in U.S. businesses. From its inception, the award has become the ultimate seal of American corporate excellence, and in 1989 IBM set out to win it. By the end of the 1980s this successful American enterprise could no longer ignore the fact that it was in serious trouble. Once the unchallenged leader in a vast industry, its market share and profits were eroding. Led by its chairman, John Akers, it was searching for ways to reverse this quicksand decline. This book captures the full drama and import of what happened when IBM made the decision to go for the award and a great corporation was forced to see itself as others saw it. The company lost in 1989, but won in 1990. This gripping business case history is a valuable study of how and why a vast corporation can and must reinvent itself. The book includes the official criteria of the award and the full text of the successful IBM application for it.