For Jean Estuesta, the Philippine Quality Award (PQA) is more than just about enhancing a company’s prestige or improving credibility, but also about setting the stage for local businesses and organizations to become truly globally competitive.

Attending the recently concluded PQA application development workshop in Tagaytay City as a representative of her company, Schneider Philippines, Jean emphasized that the PQA “helps us identify areas for improvement and validate if what we are doing are still current, applicable, and most of all correct.”

Institutionalized in 2001 by the enactment of the Republic Act 9013, PQA has since bestowed recognition to exemplary businesses and organizations. As the highest level of national recognition for exemplary organizational performance, it is a badge of honor and proof of a company’s business excellence. This year, about 30 organizations are vying to get PQA certification, which is awarded only to the three most deserving organizations, public or private, every year.

Based on the Baldridge National Quality Award in the USA, PQA helps local public and private organizations to attain global competitiveness and recognizes their achievements in performance excellence. It also aims to stimulate local companies and organizations to improve quality and productivity for the pride of recognition while obtaining a competitive edge and providing example to others.

Any organization may apply for the PQA, and they will be judged according to their performances in the areas of leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus, process management and results.

PQA requires applicant organizations to undergo its training programs, which are designed to help companies assess their own performance vis-à-vis PQA’s set criteria. That is, any organization, big or small, whether engaged in the manufacturing or service field, can hugely benefit from taking part in PQA. Applicants get a rigorous evaluation equivalent to about 550 to 600 hours of review by a trained panel of PQA assessors. They will also receive a feedback report that can guide the organization’s quality and productivity improvement efforts, which can then increase employee involvement, capability and flexibility to cope with rapid changes while keeping them focused on customer satisfaction and retention.

The bottomline, applicant organizations get to know their own strengths and weaknesses better, thereby enabling them to act on them and implement improvement measures. This also gives them a sharper, focused vision of how they can achieve their own business goals.

PQA’s recent development workshop, for instance, was attended by dozens of companies keen on achieving world-class quality in all their organizational and production aspects. Participants included Toshiba Information Equipment Philippines., Sterling Group of Companies, Universal Robina Corp., St. Paul University Manila and Asian Appraisal Co.

 - Ayen Infante
posted: 02/28/2011

source: http://www.tribuneonline.org/business/20110228bus5.html