European Quality Award Model- (CII-EXIM Award in India ) – A Brief Introduction

EQA or the European Quality Award is administered by European Foundation for Quality
Management,an autonomous and non-profit organization in Europe. The European Quality
award was instituted after the Malcolm Baldrige National Award of USA and hence it is
claimed that the creators of the model could enhance the criteria and the contents in some of
the aspects.

In India, This award is better known as CII-Exim award and is managed by CII TQM
Division (CII Institute of Quality ) with Head office at Bengaluru.

Many things are common between Malcolm Baldrige award and the CII award. Both are
having the scores from 0-1000. Roughly the score is split 50% for enablers or processes and
50% for results. Many criteria are similar like Leadership, strategic planning etc.

The criteria in CII EXIM award model are

1. Leadership
2. Policy and strategy
3. People
4. Partnerships and Resources
5. Processes
6. Customer results
7. People results
8. Society results
9. Key Performance results

The Model has a lot of emphasis on resources as a complete section is devoted to managing
resources. Environment protection is also figuring as a requirement in leadership category
thus bringing out the concern for Europe for environment. The linkage between strategy and
the process framework is a requirement in the model and so a systematic deployment of
strategy is anticipated.

On results, the interesting feature of EFQM –CII model is that the emphasis is on the
perceptions of stakeholders and 75% of the marks are given for customer or employee
perceptions. Only 25 % of the marks is given for the internal data compiled by the company.
This is to drive home the point that results should be seen as positive by the respective
stakeholders using their own yardsticks. The results required are more detailed in the case of
CII model than Baldrige.

CII model scores follow a RADAR principle ie Results Approach Deployment Assessment
and Review. This is supposed to be indicative of the PDCA (Plan-DO –Check-Act) cycle with
one variation that we start with the results targeted. Each sub criterion is supposed to be
evaluated for
 1. Approach – whether the approach is sound , and integrated with the policy and
strategy.
2. Deployment –whether the approach is implemented in a structured way
3. Assessment and Review- whether the measurement is in place for effectiveness of
approach and deployment and whether learning is internalized to improve the
approach.

The scoring for results category are based on whether the results have got trends and whether
they are exceeding the targets set by the organization. They should also be positive in
comparisons with others to get high scores. CII model also needs the organization to
determine the processes responsible for the favourable trends. The scoring is also more
detailed with increments of 5% in every aspect (for example in Approach ,Deployment ,
assessment and review)

Though European model came later then Baldrige it has acquired very good popularity in
India and in other developing countries. It is private unlike Baldrige model which is a
Government property. This is the reason why limited organizations only adopt this model and
in case CII wants to make it more popular, it may need to make it more affordable to all
companies.

Some of the winners of this award are

1. Tata Steel Limited

2. Hewlett Packard India Limited
3. Maruti Udyog Limited
4. Infosys Technologies Limited
5. Tata Motors Limited (CVBU)
6. BHEL Hardwar Unit

Some organizations have adopted CII model as the basic frame work and have developed
their own award models. Ravi Kirloskar Quality Prize in the Kirloskar Group is an example
of how CII (European) model has inspired orgainsations to come up with their own models
and awards.

It is often felt that the quality of the award is not in its criteria but in the quality of assessors.
The assessors interpret the criteria for us and it becomes imperative we have very capable
people on board. It is difficult to find talented people who have the right attitude and with
increasing pressure of work, many executives shy away from the arduous task of doing the
assessment. The organizations who apply for the award need to see the value in the feedback
report which assessors give and this can happen only of the assessors have very good
understanding of business and the model.

It looks like that the task of award administrators is now to concentrate more on the quality of
assessors and less on the model as the model looks almost complete in its content and form.

(Comments/criticisms can be mailed to cpc@tqmi.com. Views expressed are personal)