2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This study investigates the implementation of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model to see how the EFQM model supports continuous improvement, strengthens leadership, and encourages employee engagement to support strategic planning. The EFQM model is structured into nine main criteria: five Enablers criteria (leadership, strategy, employees, partnerships & resources, and processes) and four Results criteria (employees, customers, society, and key business), each assessed independently and jointly with a total score of 1000 points. Enablers criteria are weighted at 10% each, while customer-related and key results criteria at 15% each, and employee-related and society-related results criteria at 10% each. The study employed quantitative method for results or performance metrics and qualitative method for enablers. The quantitative method included hypothesis testing of target vs performance metrics using paired t-test. The qualitative method included the RADAR (Results, Approach, Deployment, Assessment, and Review) framework for performance assessment and continuous improvement. Data were collected from XXX Steel Plant located in Iran with 13,000 employees and analyzed using SPSS and MS Excel. This study concentrated on customer-related data (sub-criteria 5.e and 6.b) to illustrate the effectiveness of the overall methods. The findings reveal a gap between the performance metrics and the target. The research explores the influence of implementing the EFQM model on customer performance, emphasizing its structured qualitative and quantitative approach to monitoring and enhancing strategic planning. Lessons learned from the EFQM model’s organizational deployment offer actionable strategies to enhance strategic planning, leadership, and process optimization. This is useful for engineering education as a quality management tool.