Minneapolis-based Custom Research Inc., has won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the service category.

Maritz Marketing Research Inc., St. Louis, has formed partnerships with six European research firms: NIPO, The Research Institute, Amsterdam; L+H AutomobilConsult GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany; Basis-Kontakt, Hamburg; TMO, Paris; DOXA S.p.A., Milan; and AREA INVESTIGATION, S.A., Madrid.

Chicago-based Market Facts, Inc. has opened an office at 7900 S.E. 28th St., Mercer Island, Wash.

MRI Research has moved to 5841 Edison Place, Ste. 210, Carlsbad, Calif., 92008.

San Francisco-based CfMC and In2itive Technologies, a Danish market research Windows software vendor, have joined forces and will create In2Survent, a software product that will incorporate research tasks from questionnaire design to data processing into the Windows concept. The alliance will also form the basis for a mutual market representation in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.

Market Perceptions, Inc., has opened a focus group and observational research facility at its offices in Denver’s Cherry Creek North. The facility includes a focus goup room, a one-way viewing room and a one-on-one interviewing room.

Affina Corporation, a Troy, Mich., firm that provides customer relationship building processes through the application of marketing research, call center services and database management, is one of four U.S. companies that has been approved to participate in an intensive call center certification process by the Customer Outsourcing Performance Center (COPC), the Williamsville, N.Y.-based standards organization formed by a consortium of high-tech corporations including Microsoft, Novell, Dell and Clads.

Medi-World, a global network of medical product marketing research companies, has chosen Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based Strategic Marketing Corporation (SMC) and SMC’s operating unit Strategic Marketing Asia (SMA) as its sole representative for the U.S. and China. The Medi-World network, which includes 46 companies in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, was created to provide medical product clients with a multinational knowledge and intelligence pool.

The Farnsworth Group has moved to larger quarters at One Park Fletcher, Suite C-200, 2601 Fortune Circle East, Indianapolis, Ind. The company has also formed a new division, Stone Research Services, to provide telephone research and focus group services.

Ziment Associates has moved to 162 Fifth Ave., 11th floor, New York, N.Y.

Disher Strategic Research has moved to 873 Fenchurch Ct., Suite 200, Cincinnati, Ohio.