Posted by Tom Short on June 23, 1999 at 09:30:10:

The Baldridge award for Quality.
ISO 9000 certification.
Ford Q-1
GIGA Award for Excellence.
GEO Award (from AT Kearney).

These are just a few of the awards that have created and subsequently bequeathed on businesses over the last several years. In some cases (Ford Q-1, or ISO 9000) the 'awards' are more accurately considered to be certifications. But what is it that they certify?

Seems to me what these awards and certifications all have in common is that they explicitly recognize the recipient's capabilities. These capabilities are a function of both technology and plant infrastructure as well as the firm's employee know-how.

AT Kearney Geo Award:

From PR News Wire, June 17, 1999:
Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney is launching a unique initiative to recognize companies
demonstrating the most effective and innovative operations practices.

A.T. Kearney's GEO AWARDS (Global Excellence in Operations) will cover eleven distinct management
practices including operations strategy, product development, manufacturing, supply chain,
information, and process technology. The goal of the GEO Awards is to identify the latest concepts and
operational trends by examining performance through critical measures such as customer satisfaction,
quality, economics, agility, and innovation.

While the earlier awards focused on quality, especially within a manufacturing environment, tended to perhaps require physical infrastructure in order for a firm to have consistent processes, these latter-day awards seem to focus more on employee know-how.

It occurred to me as I was reading a press release from AT Kearney announcing their GEO Awards that we really are moving to a knowledge-based economy, one in which the firms that win a GEO Award are going to be those firms which best manage what they know. Was wondering whether anyone has seen (or conducted) research on this shift in the focus of these awards, and the relative successfulness of their recipients.

Any thoughts?

---

Follow Ups:

---

Click Here to Post Follow Up in New Forums

    Knowledge Management Think Tank (New)

  

 Subject: 

Message: