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Canada Award for Excellence (CAE)

"Visible gains are possible in less than a year. 
Plan 4 to 7 years for substantial gains." 
-- Tantara Inc. 
The Canada Award for Excellence (CAE) is an annual award to recognize Canadian companies for performance excellence.
 
The CAE is a Total Quality Management model. The model is made up of 7 elements (shown below in italic):
 
1.0 Leadership element of CAE focuses on those who have primary responsibility and accountability for the organization's performance; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • strategic direction
        • leadership involvement
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement
2.0 Planning element of CAE pertains to the planning process in regards to improvement, the linkage of planning to strategic direction/intent, and the measurement of performance to assess progress; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • development and content
        • assessment
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement
3.0 Customer Focus element of CAE pertains to the organization's focus on customer driven innovation and on the achievement of customer satisfaction; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • voice of the customer
        • management of customer relationships
        • measurement of customer satisfaction
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement
4.0 People Focus element of CAE pertains to the development and deployment of a human resource plan for meeting the goals of the organization, and achieving excellence through people. In addition, the element pertains to the organization's efforts to foster and support an environment that encourages people to teach their full potential; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • human resource planning
        • participatory environment
        • continuous learning
        • employee satisfaction
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement
5.0 Process Management element of CAE pertains to how work is organized to support the organization's strategic direction, with a specific focus on quality assurance practices, as well as continuous improvement; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • process definition
        • process control
        • process improvement
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement
6.0 Supplier Focus element of CAE pertains to the organization's external relationships with other organizations, institutions and/or alliances that are critical to it meeting its strategic objectives; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • partnering
        • outcomes
        • continuous improvement 
7.0 Organizational Performance element of CAE pertains to the outcomes from the overall efforts for improvement, and their impact on organizational achievement; this element's primary focus is on the organization's
        • service/product quality
        • operational results
        • customers and marketplace
        • employee satisfaction and morale
        • financial performance

Comparing Canada's CAE criteria with USA's MBNQA criteria

The National Quality Institute's Excellence newsletter,
Winter 1998 edition, stated:
The two Criterias reveal a strong 'family resemblance' - many important similarities that are more significant than the differences observed.

The main similarities are that both criteria:

  • are based upon a similar set of management principles, as set out in the bar chart below
  • contain similar content and cover similar ground
  • employ almost identical evaluation systems for scoring purposes
  • employ an 'approach, deployment, results' logic
  • call for closed-loop fact-based continuous improvement to be applied to the management system
  • group the elements of the management system into a fairly similar set of subsystems, starting with leadership and culminating in company-level results
  • have evolved in similar ways; e.g., by grouping activities into natural subsystems that reinforce a system view, by consolidating all company level results into one area, and by simplifying the criteria whenever possible to provide a more usable and universal model
Differences in the Management Principles
Like cars from different manufacturers, there are a number of differences that are the result of the design being done by different groups of people, rather than from any differences in the purpose or intent.

The main differences are as follows:

  • Canadian Quality Criteria (CQC) places more explicit emphasis on the closed-loop fact-based continuous improvement cycle for each section - by calling for outcomes data for each subsystem, and for evaluation and improvement of each subsystem
  • results data are distributed somewhat differently: CQC calls for certain results data in each section, as well as key company-level results in Section 7, whereas Baldrige calls for results data only in Category 7
  • CQC examines the organization's methods of planning for improvement, while Baldrige examines the overall approach to business planning
  • CQC gives supplier management greater prominence, dealing with this as a separate section. Baldrige treats supplier management as a subset of process management
  • CQC is designed for use in any type of organization including government, health care and education, as well as the private sector, and therefore attempts to use language that is more generic and less industry-oriented
  • CQC uses language that reflects the quality management origins of the criteria. In Baldrige, words such as 'quality' have been largely eliminated to provide a more business-oriented document
  • Baldrige places more explicit emphasis than CQC on information and analysis, dealing with these as a separate 'category'. In this same category, Baldrige also calls for the use of competitive comparisons and benchmarking. CQC requests information on the results of such activities but does not specify the methods used.
Scoring Comparison
The following graphical comparison depicts the two criteria in terms of the weights attached to different sections.  Note that the content of the sections being compared does differ at a detailed level, and so the comparison is not strictly "apples to apples".
( click diagram for expanded view )
Comparison of CQC and MBNQA Criteria
 

Software Organizations Awarded a CAE Trophy, include:

  • 1996:  IBM Canada Ltd., Markham, Ontario



    • This article is comprised of various excerpts from the
    National Quality Institute'sweb site and 
    their Canadian Quality Criteria promotional material.
     

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