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MANY COMPANIES SPEND MILLIONS of dollars collecting data, but they don't analyze or use the data for decision making. Others don't measure any of their processes or procedures, don't measure the right things, or don't clearly define their measurement goals.
Companies probably wouldn't take such a nonchalant attitude toward measurement if they understood that how--or if--they measure themselves can determine their degree of success or failure. Simply put, if companies don't effectively measure themselves, they probably won't improve. Companies need a balance between what they are trying to achieve and what they are measuring. So, if a company is trying to achieve excellence, it needs to measure for excellence.
"Since things are always changing, you can't tell if they are moving in the right direction if you don't measure them. Just because something is working well today doesn't mean that it will continue to do so in the future," said Holly Threat, manager of quality and process improvement at Federal Express.
What follows is a look at what four Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners--Federal Express Corp., Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., Corning Inc. Telecommunications Products Division (TPD), and Texas Instruments Inc. Defense Systems and Electronics Group (DSEG)--measure to continuously improve their organizations.
At Federal Express, more is better
"At Federal Express, measurement is something we do a lot of. We measure everything," Threat said. "Then, we use management by objective to prioritize what processes are considered key to the company."
Threat explained why measuring everything isn't a problem. "Since we collect a lot of data, we probably measure things that we don't analyze or use for decision making. But things that aren't problems today could be problems tomorrow. We might use the data in the future."
Federal Express also doesn't worry about measuring a lot of data because most of the data are collected systematically and the data collection systems are automated, not manual, which makes data collection fast and easy.
While Federal Express measures things that aren't running smoothly and things that it wants or needs to change, it also keeps a close watch on the things that it does well. Threat said, "Things are always changing, which means that they either move up or down in their level of performance. We have to make...