The hallmark of success- ful quality implementation is a careful tailoring of these general principles to the particular characteristics or culture of a given company or agency. In addition, OMB created the annual Quality Improvement Prototype Award and the Presiden- tial Award for Quality and began holding an annual federal conference on quality. These actions led to widespread interest in initiating quality management efforts in federal agencies. FQI must reach out to leaders in the Cabinet, Congress, agencies, unions, universi- ties, associations, and private business to help energize and support the largest organization in the world as it undertakes the massive changes needed in its culture and systems. The scope and depth of current quality improvement efforts in government is not precisely known.
Available evidence points to a strong movement that is gaining momentum.
In fact, there are probably very few agen- cies that are not aware of the federal push for service and product quality improvement and that do not have at least some of their components applying quality principles and practices. Documented results of some of the federal quality improve- ment efforts can be found in case studies of the 20 Quality Improvement Prototype and 3 Presidential Award winners over the past five years. Table 1 outlines the results for three agency winners. In addition to the improved services and dollar savings noted in the table, these agencies report better communication and higher morale as the result of their quality initiatives. Despite these results and the growing evidence of progress, the federal quality movement is still in its early stages.