In 1994, the idea for this project (we were not then thinking about a
book) arose in a context of growing publicity surrounding prizes like
the D- ing Award, the Malcolm Baldrige Award, and the European Quality
Award, prompting us to ask: "Could we de?ne what world-class
manufacturing is? It's got to be more than managing processes. Are the
US and Japan really in the lead, as so many examples suggest?" Xavier de
Groote, our colleague in the Operations Management group at INSEAD, made
a major contribution to the formulation of the ?rst version of our
framework, the ?rst questi- naire, and the ?rst edition of the
Industrial Excellence Award (IEA) in 1995. He witnessed the crowning of
the ?rst winner, STMP Laval (which became Solvay Automotive soon
afterwards and later Ingeny following its merger with Plastic Omnium).
The answer to our initial questions can be found in this book. While the
journey took seven years and was far from easy, we believe we have made
some progress. We have awarded the IEA annually since 1995 in France,
and in Germany since 1997. In the course of this effort, we have
analyzed questionnaires from hundreds of plants, visited 100 of them,
and given prizes to 30. We did not know what we might discover when we
?rst approached this undertaking but we came away deeply impressed.
