Contact: Jan Kosko, janice.kosko@nist.gov
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
1996 Winner
Manufacturing Category
ADAC Laboratories
Highest Official: David L. Lowe
Chief Executive Officer
Public Affairs Contact:Kathy Call
Corporate Communications
Ph.: (408) 321-9100
Founded in 1970, ADAC Laboratories designs, manufactures, markets and
supports products for healthcare customers in nuclear medicine,
radiation therapy planning and healthcare information systems. These
products and services are sold to hospitals, universities and clinics
throughout the world. ADAC's 710 employees work primarily at its
headquarters facility in Milpitas, Calif., and at facilities in Houston,
Texas, and Washington, Mo.
Quality and Business Performance Achievements:
* Customer focus at ADAC Laboratories is revealed by its core
value, "Customers Come First." All executives are expected to
spend 25 percent of their time with customers, personally take
customer calls and invite customers to attend weekly quality
meetings. Customer satisfaction results have shown positive and
improving trends over a five-year period for post sales
technical support (10 percent increase), customer retention
(from 70 percent to 90 percent), and service contract renewals
(from 85 percent to 95 percent).
* One of ADAC's measures of service quality is service cycle time,
which determines the total time for getting a system back in
operation. Service cycle time is critical to customers since
they often cannot treat patients until a problem is fixed. Since
the company began tracking this measure in 1990, the average
cycle time has declined from 56 to 17 hours.
* ADAC's nuclear medicine market share has grown over the past
five years from 10 percent to approximately 52 percent in the
United States and from 5 percent to approximately 28 percent in
Europe. Also, its revenue has tripled since 1990 compared to a
50 percent increase for the industry as a whole.
* ADAC consistently brings products to market faster than its
competitors. Time to market leadership is evidenced by three
product releases that averaged just over one-half the
development time of competitors for similar products.
* Current levels and trends in key business measures demonstrate
positive trends and performance. For example, revenue per
employee has risen from about $200,000 in 1990 to almost
$330,000 in 1995. On this overall measure of productivity, ADAC
has achieved a 65 percent greater efficiency than its best
competitor. Another measure is the number of direct labor
dollars required to build cameras used to detect and diagnose
health problems. Through more efficient processes and technology
improvements, labor dollars per camera have decreased 40 percent
since 1994.
* ADAC has a strong focus on process that is standardized through
training and education of all employees. Over 100 customer and
operational measures are reported in twice weekly quality
meetings, which are open to all employees, customers and
suppliers.
* ADAC's business planning process, known as DASH, measures
financial, customer, and operational performance and regulatory
compliance. At quarterly DASH meetings, progress is checked and,
if needed, mid-course changes are made emphasizing recent
performance compared with plans and the vision of the future.
* ADAC started an Advanced Clinical Research Program in 1992 to
fund research at leading hospitals to improve the quality and
efficiency of healthcare. ADAC donates approximately $350,000
annually to the program.