A Novel Cluster Analysis on National Quality Awarding in Asian Countries: Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan

Quality awarding is one of the most important strategies in helping enhancing the competitiveness of private sectors. In Thailand, Thailand Quality Award (TQA) has been well-established and implemented since 2002. However, there is no report on the comparison between quality awards given by Thailand and other Asian countries, namely Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. So, the main objective of this report was to compare the quality awards, namely Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), Thailand Quality Award (TQA), Japan Quality Award (JQA), Singapore Quality Award (SQA) and Taiwan National Quality Award (TNQA). Asian quality awards originated from MBNQA with minor modification which was identified by high correlation co-efficiency. Most of the awards were mentioned on result issues, identified by a high range score (400-450 score). Also, major selection criteria for awarding private sectors were depended on the high score base (≥ 700 score), especially in business results. Key results from cluster ranking on those awards were categorized into two groups: 1) TQA, SQA and JQA, and 2) MBNQA and TNQA.