The world series of quality control: A case study in the package delivery industry

Internal competition has been a part of many interventions in organizational behavior management as well as in nonbehavioral management programs. Often competition is implicit in feedback programs. The use of internal competition is endorsed by some theorists and questioned by others. In the present study, formal competition was used as an intervention to improve quality control in a package delivery company. In this industry, speed and accuracy of package delivery are critical to company success. For the major companies in the industry, these outcomes are dependent upon the quality of sorting and loading at central loading facilities located throughout the United States. In order to improve quality control in sorting and loading, a competitive program of feedback and positive reinforcement was implemented using a baseball analog system Extant work groups were paired in daily games in which points were scored based on company quality control measures. Fourteen teams were divided into leagues and divisions leading to playoffs and a world series. The program demonstrated quality increases, prompting management to replace the local program with a regional competition between facilities. These data suggest that internal competition can be a potent intervention to improve quality control.