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https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/foundations-successful-business/operations

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## Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

-  Foundations for a Successful Business  Expand or Collapse    -  Organizational Context 
  -  Leadership 
  -  Strategy 
  -  Customers 
  -  Data and Analysis 
  -  Workforce 
  -  Operations 
  -  Results 
  -  Learn and Improve 
  -  Your Turn 
  -  What’s Next? 
  -  Foundations for a Successful Business Interactive Modules 

# Operations

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## Establish effective and efficient operations that deliver high-quality products and services—no margin, no mission.

Credit:

Design your processesEvaluate and improveControl costs and prevent wasteWork with suppliersPrepare for disasters and emergenciesOperations - Interactive ModuleYour Turn - Answer Your Organizations Key Questions

### Design your organization’s work as a set of regular, repeatable steps (processes).

                  - Design work to encompass a whole task, process, or system.
                  - Don’t just focus design on product and service processes; include processes related to management, front office, finance, legal, and human resources functions.
                  - Integrate input from customers and vendors to determine what your processes must accomplish if your products and services are to have value.
                  - Carefully design your processes to achieve important product, service, operational, and organizational requirements. Measure how well processes are meeting their requirements.  

### Regularly evaluate and improve your products/services and processes.

                  - If you are not getting what you want out of a process, evaluate the inputs to the process, the steps in the process, and the resources assigned to the process.
                  - Numerous performance improvement tools are available. Some examples are Plan-Do-Check (or Study)-Act (PDCA or PDSA),  Lean, Six Sigma, and ISO standards .

### Determine ways to control the costs of your operations (the resources used). Prevent errors and waste.

                      - Ensure that your processes are effective and efficient (that they accomplish what you intend while using the fewest possible resources).
                      - Determine sources of defects in products and processes and seek to eliminate them through your process improvement efforts.
                      - Your product and service quality are limited by the quality of the input material and services you receive. Manage them effectively.

### Resources include materials, labor, time, money, and your supply chain.

### Work with your suppliers to ensure appropriate quality, timeliness, and agility.

                  - Clearly communicate requirements and expectations; measure supplier performance and provide regular feedback.
                  - Minimize single points of failure in your supply chain by having alternatives available.  

### Prepare your organization for potential disasters and emergencies.

                  - Prepare your organization to continue operating in an emergency. Consider what your organization would need to do to continue to provide products and services to customers.  

## Interactive Module

Credit:

### 

### Operations

Online self-paced learning for each of the fundamental areas of the *Foundations for a Successful Business.*

View all modules.

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### Role-Model Best Practices

Stellar SolutionsBaldrige Award Recipient

A fully operational IT disaster-recovery plan provides for continuity of operations in the event of a local emergency at any of the company’s locations. The plan addresses firewall improvements, antivirus software, and robust password protocols to strengthen the company’s cybersecurity position. A systematic eight-stage approach is used to design work processes. It begins with understanding stakeholder needs through voice-of-the-customer feedback and continues with best practices and defining metrics. After senior leadership approval, the process steps are created, employees are trained, and the process is deployed and monitored.

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Role-model best practice are from award application at time of award.Learn more role-model best practices from Baldrige Award recipients in all sectors.

Performance excellenceAssessment tools and servicesBaldrige Framework and Criteria

## Contacts

                -      Baldrige Customer Service    baldrige@nist.gov       (301) 975-2036          NIST/BPEP   100 Bureau Drive, M/S 1020   Gaithersburg,  MD 20899-1020   

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