Dr. Richard J. Schonberger and his WCP Assessment Matrix and International Benchmarking Materials

World Executive Digest (Hong Kong) selected Dr. Richard J. Schonberger as a "significant pathfinder…thinkers and practitioners whose ideas continue to shape management today."

Also included with Dr. Schonberger were Dr. Deming, Dr. Juran, IBM founder Thomas Watson, former GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. and quality expert Philip Crosby.

A Quality Digest cover story included Schonberger as one of "The New Gurus - The Next Leaders of the Quality Revolution." Schonberger was joined by Tom Peters, H. James Harrington, Stephen Covey, Eliyahu Goldratt, Ken Blanchard and other leading edge thinkers.

For the past 18 years, Schonberger has been on the forefront of world-class excellence, lean manufacturing and continual process improvement. While other "gurus" have focused on part of the equation, Schonberger's unique contribution is pulling it all together - from strategy to front line operations, across all the business functions and from deep in the supplier base to the final customer.

This integrated treatment is one reason why his first two books became two of the top three selling manufacturing books of all time (now in their 20th and 25th printings respectively). And, why his casebook is thought to be the best-selling business casebook of all time.

An engineer, analyst, and consultant early in his career, he has published over 100 articles and papers in such publications as The Harvard Business Review, Quality Progress, The Wall Street Journal, Journal of Cost Management, Datamation, Personnel Journal, and National Productivity Review. The following material has been excerpted from WCP Newsletter, published by Richard J. Schonberger for WCP global Partners:

QUESTION

• Why participate in the World Class by Principles (WCP) International Benchmarking-since there are other well publicized awards and recognition?

RESPONSES

• "Quiet benchmarking": The WCP is "quiet"-no public exposure (company scores kept confidential), therefore no need (or cost) for external auditors, $4,000-$5,000 application fees, etc. The purpose is to truly develop and sustain world-class rates of improvement, not to win an award.
• High validity: Managers doing the self-scoring have no incentive to inflate scores-since there is no public award, recognition, or release of scores, except in the aggregate (or by special permission).
• Quick: A small cross-functional management team usually can complete their self-scoring on the 16 principles in about 45 minutes (vs. many hours of high-level people's time for most other assessment tools); the give-and-take (arguing) over the scores is in itself valuable.
• Elite sample: The manufacturers submitting scores to the WCP data base are an elite group; many have received recognition such as a Baldrige Award, Shingo Prize, or other national or state quality prize. Though any company may join the benchmarking, the research team seeks out the best, so that composite benchmarking scores reflect best practices of companies with forward vision. For these "sought out" elite companies, about 50 percent have accepted our invitation to participate in the WCP; this compares with only 11 percent acceptances for one of the well-known publicly sponsored benchmark assessments.
• Enabler: The breadth and depth of the WCP criteria define the pathways to excellence that are precursors to winning prestigious public awards.
• Total business benchmarking: The 16 principles in the WCP stretch from stem to stern, including most of what organizations do (e.g., from focused organization to continuous process improvement to promoting and marketing every improvement).
• International: While most benchmarking and public recognition are national or state, the WCP Benchmarking is international, with research partners headquartered in 14 countries.
• Total work force: The WCP criteria are crafted so as to give high emphasis to contributions of every employee; other benchmarking and awards that focus heavily on what leaders should do carry the risk that gains will be lost if a few leaders depart for greener pastures.
• "Pure-play" process management: The WCP criteria track how to do it-in highly specific terms-unlike some other assessment tools that contaminate the how with ultimate financial success; the pure-play approach embodied in the WCP follows the premise that if you do the right things, and stay with them, the bottom line will take care of itself.
• Tough: The WCP criteria are extremely tough, much more so thanhe Baldrige and other Baldrige-caliber awards; even the top-scoring companies are scoring themselves 2's and 3's (out of a possible 5 points) on a few of the 16 principles-which reveal their blind spots.
• Next century: The problem for manufacturers that have enjoyed success is complacency. Our research shows that companies receiving awards tend to let down (to some extent, the award contributes to the let-down); the WCM humbles even the best, and its top score-5 points-defines not what the best are achieving today but what they must achieve to survive and thrive in the much elevated global competitive arena of the 21st Century.