What Companies do not Know About Self‐assessment : Self‐assessment in Germany

In Germany Quality Management awards and thus self‐assessment are well known and popular‐at least amongst quality management professionals. About 2000 companies have carried out self‐assessment using the EFQM Model as a framework (DGQ, 2005). This is at least approximately the number of participants in German regional and national quality awards. Since 1992, with the first call for the national Ludwig‐Erhard‐Preis, about 1953 companies have taken part in a quality award, see figure (1). The number of participants varies from state to state. This difference may be caused by the application format: There are many applicants where the application is done by the means of a questionnaire, as it is the case of Bavaria (910), Thuringia (402), Northrhein‐Westphalia (267) and Saxony‐Anhalt (60). Fewer applications were received in Berlin‐Brandenburg (65), Saxony (84), Schleswig‐ Holstein (40), and with the national quality award (125), where a demanding application brochure is needed. Figure 1. Number of participants and type of application format in quality awards of different federal states of Germany. Information on number of participants was collected from quality award offices.