17 local organisations honoured at Best-Performing Companies Conference

Accepting the highest regional award that can be granted, the EFQM 2019 Ireland Excellence Award, Titanic Belfast’s chief executive Judith Owens said:

"Titanic Belfast is delighted to receive this accolade. Since starting to build the organisation back in 2011, our journey has been about developing a sustainable framework of excellence and encouraging staff to apply it to everything we do. One in five people visiting the island of Ireland arrive with the intention of coming to Titanic Belfast and we have to live up to their expectation of excellence from before they walk in through the door until after they have left."

A total of 15 organisations received EFQM (European Foundation of Quality Management) awards yesterday, and a further two were awarded the COTRI (China Outbound Tourism Research Institute) ‘China Ready’ Quality Label.

The Centre’s chief executive Bob Barbour praised all the winners who were rewarded for years of effort to build best practice and embed excellence into their organisations.

"These awards are a celebration of organisations that have gone through a robust assessment against a comprehensive management improvement framework that is used widely across Europe, and increasingly in the Middle East, China and South America. It’s the same process no matter your country, sector or size.

“The application of the EFQM framework to an organisation’s operations together with the passionate pursuit of quality excellence will help them become leaner, more profitable, more sustainable and therefore more competitive."

Titanic Belfast as winner of the Ireland Excellence Award along is now eligible to apply for the European-wide EFQM European Excellence Award. 

Attendees heard presentations from companies including Denroy, Slieve Russell, Titanic Belfast, Wheatley Group (Scotland) and Young Enterprise on critical areas of performance where they are recognised as sector exemplars. 
A panel discussion on “Energy, IoT and hyper-connectivity” featured contributions from Bombardier, Centre for Sustainable Technologies at Ulster University, Energi World, NIE Networks and Smart Grid Ireland whilst the panel discussion on “Navigating a hyper-competitive marketplace” featured contributions from Denroy, Instil Software, Mash Direct, SeeSense and Tourism Northern Ireland.

Bob Barbour urged the attendees to “listen to the reliable insights in the presentations and take them back to your organisations to drive these principles into your strategies and operations in order to achieve sustainable excellence and competitive advantage.”

The Centre for Competitiveness is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that helps its members build sustainable competitive advantage by increasing productivity, quality and embedding a culture of innovation. It uses internationally recognised standards to deliver high quality assessments, training and accreditation. To find out more about their work log on to http://www.cforc.org

FULL LIST OF AWARD WINNERS

EFQM 2019 Ireland Excellence Award
• Titanic Belfast

EFQM Recognised for Excellence (5 Star)

• Moyola Precision Engineering
• Bradfor
• Slieve Russell Hotel

EFQM Recognised for Excellence (4 Star)
• Springco
• Technical Metals Ltd
• Dromore High School
• Skylon Hotel
• Hilton Dublin Kilmainham

EFQM Recognised for Excellence (3 Star):
• Vita Materials
• Nitronica

EFQM Committed to Excellence:
• Choice
• Resilience Care
• Clonabreany House.

EFQM Gold Star Service Excellence (Role Model) Award:
• Driver & Vehicle Agency.

EFQM Gold Star Service Excellence Award
• Miscampbell & Co.

COTRI accreditation for ‘China Ready’ organisations
• Armagh City Hotel
• Dunadry Hotel

Source: Press Release