Title: European Foundation for Quality Management business excellence model clustering by max-min methods

Authors: Mohammad Abolshah; Niloofar Ghazivakili

Addresses: Engineering Faculty, Islamic Azad University, Semnan Branch, Iran ' MBA Faculty, Semnan University, Iran

Abstract: Todays, organisations and enterprises search many ways and opportunities to improve, maximalist strong and to minimalise weak sides of their activity. Organisations need to establish an appropriate management system regardless of sector, size, structure or maturity that will be successful in the future. The EFQM excellence model is a practical tool to help organisations measure where they are on the path to excellence; helping them understand the gaps, and then stimulating solutions. Many scientists have been studying on this topic. In this paper, max-min methods are used for clustering variables. To test contribution of our approach, the decision making units D1 until D25 are the units that have been assessed by the experienced assessors in the past and allocated them scores that are confirmed. Hereafter, these units should be called standard units. Therefore, elements in U are classified into four categories; it indicates lowering the cluster threshold value to obtain the optimal number of clusters according to the requirements.

Keywords: European Foundation for Quality Management; EFQM; max-min; business excellence models; clustering variables.

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2013.057258

Middle East Journal of Management, 2013 Vol.1 No.2, pp.157 - 167

Received: 15 Jul 2013
Accepted: 17 Jul 2013
Published online: 05 Jul 2014 *

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