2007

Award Recipient

U.S. Army Armament Research, 

Development and Engineering 

Center (ARDEC)

From the cannonballs fashioned for George Washington’s 

Continental Army to the laser-guided artillery currently 

being used in combat, Warfighters defending and protecting 

the United States from its enemies rely on having the 

best weaponry and ammunition available. The U.S. Army 

Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center 

(ARDEC)—one of the specialized research, development, 

and engineering centers within the U.S. Army Materiel 

Command—has been responsible for meeting this critical 

demand. ARDEC develops 90 percent of the Army’s 

armaments and ammunition including warheads, explosives, 

all sizes of firearms, battlefield sensors, and advanced 

weaponry based on high-power microwaves, high-energy 

lasers, and nanotechnology. 

The Center’s annual net revenue is in excess of $1 billion. 

Of its nearly 3,000 employees, more than two-thirds are 

scientists and engineers. The ARDEC headquarters in 

Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., is home to 2,500 staff with the other 

employees located at ARDEC satellite offices and facilities in 

Illinois, Maryland, and New York. 

Excelling in a Challenging World

Dramatic changes in the types of adversaries and 

technologies that U.S. Warfighters face, the ongoing 

transformation of the military services, and increasing 

competition for funding combine to make the delivery of 

innovative technologies to the U.S. Army more important 

than ever. In this demanding environment, ARDEC not 

only has maintained its position as provider of choice to its 

Army customers but has also expanded its market. Since 

2001, ARDEC’s customer base has shifted from virtually 100 

percent Army customers to approximately 83 percent Army 

and 17 percent non-Army, including organizations such as 

the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Department 

of Homeland Security.

ARDEC applies a team approach to all project and 

strategic planning activities, and the teams often include 

Department of Defense (DoD) organizations, defense 

contractors, and other government agencies. Such 

collaborations and partnerships allow ARDEC to leverage 

its own capabilities and accelerate the development of crucial 

innovations. This multifaceted quest for excellence has had a 

significant impact on ARDEC’s bottom line:

	 •	Overall revenue increased from $640 million in fiscal

year (FY) 2001 to over $1 billion in FY 2007, and in the 

same period, revenue from non-Army customers grew from 

$60 million to $140 million.

	 •	Between FY 2004 and FY 2007, the number of

Cooperative Research and Development Agreements 

(CRADAs) with ARDEC as a partner grew from 99 to more 

than 140—representing 79 percent of the cash-in value for

CRADAs signed by the Army’s Research, Development 

and Engineering Command (RDECOM) laboratories. The 

increase in CRADA money that ARDEC could leverage 

during the three-year period increased from $10.2 million 

to $29.4 million.

National Institute of Standards and Technology • U.S. Department of Commerce

Baldrige National Quality Program

Baldrige 20th Anniversary Highlight:

The Baldrige Award Crystal

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award,

composed of two solid Steuben Glass crystal prismatic 

forms, stands 14 inches tall. The crystal is held in a base of

black anodized aluminum with the Award recipient’s name 

engraved on the base. A 22-karat gold-plated medallion 

is captured in the front section of the crystal. The medal 

bears the inscriptions “Malcolm Baldrige National Quality

Award” and “The Quest for Excellence” on one side and

the Presidential Seal on the other. 

The President of the United States traditionally presents 

the Award at a special ceremony in Washington, D.C.

What is the Malcolm Baldrige 

National Quality Award?

Named after the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Malcolm

Baldrige National Quality Award was established by

Congress in 1987 to promote excellence in organizational 

performance, recognize the achievements and results of 

U.S. organizations, and publicize successful performance 

strategies. For more information, see http://baldrige.nist.gov.
Performance for the 

Ultimate Customer

ARDEC’s end-users are, of course, U.S. Warfighters whose 

lives depend on the products provided. To steadily improve 

itself and its products on behalf of those customers, ARDEC 

has been applying the Baldrige Criteria to its operations

since the 1990s. In 2004, ARDEC reorganized itself around

a capability- and competency-based structure, and followed 

this in 2005 with the adoption of Enterprise Excellence—a 

strategy built around a Baldrige framework and integrating

best practices such as Balanced Scorecard, Lean/Six Sigma,

Capability Maturity Model Integration, and ISO. 

As a result of this quality journey, ARDEC has:

	 •	Achieved overall Lean/Six Sigma improvements in

quality (91 percent), cost (70 percent), schedule (67 percent)

and risk (84 percent) with an overall cost avoidance of $3.22

billion since 2001;

	 •	Received the Army’s Large R&D Laboratory of the 

Year award for four of the last eight years and 13 of the 

Army’s 10 Greatest Invention of the Year awards in the past 

five years;

	 •	Been recognized for the technological innovation of its

SWORDS robot that was named one of the “most amazing 

inventions of 2004” by Time;

	 •	Been named the Army’s benchmark for technology

transition by the Army Audit Agency; and

	 •	Been honored with the Army’s 2005 Collaboration

Team of the Year award and two Collaboration Team awards 

in 2006.

ARDEC’s overall customer satisfaction ratings increased 

from 3.48 (on a 4-point scale) in FY 2000 to 3.75 in FY

2007, exceeding both government and industry benchmarks. 

During 2004-2007, satisfaction among Army customers

remained fairly consistent at 3.62, while satisfaction

among non-Army customers increased from 3.82 to 3.92. 

This success has grown largely out of ARDEC’s Voice 

of the Customer (VOC) program. Web-based customer 

satisfaction surveys provide 1,500 data points and over 60

pages of comments each quarter, with the results available 

to everyone in the ARDEC workforce. 

ARDEC also has developed a number of tools to help it 

react quickly and effectively to customer needs. For example:

	 •	In FY 2005, the Center formalized a Web-based tool

for collecting and tracking customer requests with the 

objective to close all requests within 72 hours. ARDEC has 

met that goal in five of six quarters since FY 2006.

	 •	ARDEC has adopted world-class modeling, simulation,

and prototyping design tools to shorten development cycles 

and reduce costs. This has enabled a more than 50 percent 

increase in the volume of armament releases to the field. 

	 •	ARDEC’s Knowledge Management Office makes

great use of its Armaments Knowledge Base, a repository

of technical information and best practices throughout the 

armaments industry that has grown from 450 documents in

FY 2001 to more than 4,000 in FY 2007.

Growing a Specialized Workforce

The skills and expertise that ARDEC requires in its 

workforce are not taught in universities or readily obtainable 

through previous work experience. Therefore, the Center 

created an internal Armament University to provide its staff 

with specialized training. Staff also has access to continuing 

education, including advanced degree programs and Lean/Six

Sigma training, to support continuous improvement and 

innovation. More than $3 million was spent in tuition 

assistance for ARDEC employees in 2006.

In addition to these enrichment opportunities, the Center 

devotes significant time, resources, and funding to keeping 

ARDEC staff “fully engaged and satisfied,” a goal that survey 

results show is being met. For example: 

	 •	Levels for workforce engagement (empowerment,

communication, motivation, training, and recognition) are 

consistently ranked above 80 percent by employees and are 

higher than comparable best-in-class benchmarks.

	 •	Job satisfaction increased from 85 percent in FY 2004

to 90 percent in FY 2007, exceeding American Productivity 

and Quality Center (APQC) and best-in-class benchmarks.

	 •	The attrition rate for engineers and scientists since FY

2004 has been consistently lower than competing RDECOM

laboratories and other benchmarked best-in-class industry 

organizations.

ARDEC’s strong attention to its workforce has not gone 

unnoticed. In 2005, the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics recognized ARDEC

with a Gold-Level Workforce Development Award, and in

2007, ARDEC received an American Society for Training 

and Development (ASTD) BEST Award for Workplace

Learning and Performance, ranking sixth in a field of more

than 100 organizations.

Good Citizen, Good Neighbor

ARDEC strives to be a good neighbor to the 

communities surrounding its facilities and an ardent 

supporter of the greater Army community. For example:

	 •	Headquarters contributions to the Combined Federal

Campaign far exceed those of the next “best-in-class” federal 

agencies in the state of New Jersey, both in per capita giving 

and percentage of participation.

	 •	The number of volunteer hours donated to ARDEC’s

neighbors increased from 10,600 to more than 20,000

between FY 2003 and FY 2006.

	 •	During the same period, annual donations to the Army

Emergency Relief Fund increased from just over $7,000 to 

almost $16,000, and leave donations rose from just under

5,000 hours to 6,500 hours.

For more information:

U.S. Army Armament Research, 

Development and Engineering Center 

Attn: AMSRD-AAR-D

Picatinny Arsenal, NJ 07806-5000

Telephone: (973) 724-9492

Email: pica.baldrige.questions@conus.army.mil

Web site: www.pica.army.mil