an organization. Neither of these standards can be used for certification purposes as they provide guidance, not requirements. The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program educates organizations in improving their performance and administers the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Baldrige Award recognizes U.S. organizations for performance excellence based on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. The Criteria address critical aspects of management that contribute to performance excellence: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce; operations; and results. The European Foundation for Quality Management's EFQM Excellence Model supports an award scheme similar to the Baldrige Award for European companies. In Canada, the National Quality Institute presents the 'Canada Awards for Excellence' on an annual basis to organizations that have displayed outstanding performance in the areas of Quality and Workplace Wellness, and have met the institute's criteria with documented overall achievements and results. The European Quality in Social Service (EQUASS) is a sector-specific quality system designed for the social services sector and addresses quality principles that are specific to service delivery to vulnerable groups, such as empowerment, rights, and person-centredness. The Alliance for Performance Excellence is a network of state and local organizations that use the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence at the grassroots level to improve the performance of local organizations and economies. browsers can find Alliance members in their state and get the latest news and events from the Baldrige community. Process A QMS process is an element of an organizational QMS. The ISO 9001 standard requires organizations seeking compliance or certification to define the processes which form the QMS and the sequence and interaction of these processes. Butterworth-Heinemann and other publishers have offered several books which provide step-by-step guides to those seeking the quality certifications of their products, Examples of such processes include: order processes, production plans, product/ service/ process measurements to comply with specific requirements e.g. statistical process control and measurement systems analysis, calibrations, internal audit, corrective and preventive action, identification, labeling and control of non-conforming products to prevent its inadvertent use, delivery or processing, purchasing and related processes such as supplier selection and monitoring ISO 9001 requires that the performance of these processes be measured, analyzed and continually improved, and the results of this form an input into the management review process. Software Quality management software offers the techniques, processes, structure, and resources needed to simplify manufacturing and ERP activities while handling quality concerns efficiently and