Hall of Fame

The National Hall of Fame comprises:

• Orica Emergency Response Unit

• Paradigm Software Patty Ltd

• Royal Automobile Club of Queensland

• Queensland Health Pathology and Scientific Services

• Equity Transport Group

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What Winners have said!

A solicitor's office has increased billings by over 45% in three years involvement with the Gold Awards program with a staff increase of 25%

A software development company selling into USA markets says that being a gold awardee has meant a signature on a number of large orders.

A large transport company says that the large corporates understand the difficulty of not only achieving third party certification, but winning the Gold Award is something extra and accepts that a winner is an excellent organisation.

Background

For more than a decade, annual Quality Awards Presentations were made by AOQ (Queensland) Inc. Until 2000, the Gold Awards were a Queensland-wide award.

In 2000, the first regional award in Queensland was hosted by the Gold Coast, and Victoria presented both metropolitan and regional awards. The Gold Coast City Council and the Gold Coast Business Excellence Awards Association partnered the AOQ (Queensland) Inc, in hosting the 2000 Gold Coast Regional Gold Awards. In 2004 the National Awards were introduced.

In 2007 awards were presented to excellent organisations in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Organisations with a third party certification accredited by JAS-ANZ are eligible to apply for the Gold Award for Business Excellence. Organisations with third party certification issued by industry specific accreditation associations that are recognised by the Australian Government are eligible to apply for the AOQ-QLD™ Industry Award for Business Excellence. If also eligible for the Gold Award for Business Excellence, these organisations may apply for both awards. National Gold Awardees in each category are also eligible to nominate for the Asia Pacific Quality Awards. Organisations that have been inducted in the Hall of Fame (winning the award three consecutive years) are not permitted to the enter the Gold Awards for five years from the induction date.

The Gold Award for Business Excellence focuses on:

• The awareness of Quality Management and Continual Business Improvement Process as underlying principles for achieving competitiveness and organisation al success; and

• An understanding of all of the requirements for business excellence.

Specifically the eight criteria elements that are outlined in more detail above.

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Achieving Sustainable Business Excellence

Introduction

The Gold Awards for Business Excellence are judged on the level of implementation of the eight critical elements necessary for excellence and sound Company-wide Management outlined in AS/NZS ISO 9004:2000.

Need help?   If you need assistance to determine your maturity level for business excellence or to determine if you are ready to apply for the Gold Awards for Business Excellence, please contact the AOQ-QLD™ for a free consultation at 07 3816 2288.

Why take steps towards sustainable business excellence?

For all organizations, the approaches by which success is achieved are changing. Whether you participate in the future of a public or private organization, whether it is large or small, your continued success typically necessitates that you:

• Enhance your current approaches by seeking new methods.
• Improve your organisation's performance.

Where are you on the maturity model for sustainable Business Excellence?

Knowing where you are on your journey to sustainable success may help guide your next steps towards business excellence.

Gold Award Business Excellence Maturity Model

Starting	Aware	Successful	Excellent Overall Performance	Sustainable Success (Performance Excellence)
*Marginally true, the practice is not fully deployed, not much happening at all. *Limited evidence of implementation. *Limited systematic approach is evident, no real objectives. *Measurements not clearly focused, poor or unpredictable results. *Addressing customer complaints or needs but not in timely way. *Some good ideas but not always progressed effectively.	* Generally true, approximately 40% occurrence, practice is only seen in some areas. *Implementation evidence available * Reactive approach, mainly to correct problems. * Some evidence of corrective action approach. * Some information or understanding or improvements required, some objectives, some good results available. * Customer satisfaction reasonably addressed but small progress on satisfaction of other interested parties. * Some recognition of process approach, minor evidence that something useful is really happening. * Reviews or assessments resulting in some improvements and enhancements.	* True in most cases, approximately 60% or better occurrence, the practice is commonly found, but not in all areas. * Improvement evidence clearly visible. * Process-based approach is evident, more proactive than reactive. * Establishing root causes with some good corrective actions and systematic improvements. * Information available on objectives and performance against those objectives, some good improvement trends. * Satisfaction of interested parties generally being addressed. * Evidence that subject is being addressed with moderate success, with some targeted reviews and actions. * Evidence of clear improvement or enhancements, although still some concerns that subject is not addressed to its fullest.	* Mostly true, approximately 80% or better occurrence, the practices has been deployed and is very typical with only some exceptions. * Interrelated process approach is well established in the system. * Continual improvement process is well embedded within organisation and key suppliers.   Consistent positive results and sustained improvement trends, clear evidence that subject is well addressed. * Satisfaction of interested parties mostly addressed. * Proactive where appropriate, corrective action evidence that recurrence has stopped, preventive actions/risk assessments clearly evident. * Regular and routine reviews with clear improvements and enhancements, some subjects are not being addressed to their full extent. * Evidence of sustained improvement over an extended period	* Yes, true everywhere.   Near or at 100% occurrence. * The practice has been deployed throughout the organisation with virtually no exceptions. * Recognised as best-in-class, well benchmarked, strongly integrated information and improvement process (from market end-user and throughout the supply chain). * Best-in-class on all results readily demonstrated, with sustainable business assured, all interested parties satisfied. *A successful, agile and innovative learning organisation.   All approaches relevant, successful and addressed to the full extent in all areas and in all aspects.

Using the "Gold Award Maturity Model for Business Excellence" table

A simple analysis of progress against each of the eight elements of the Gold Award for Business Excellence will show you where you are on the Maturity Model.   This analysis will help you conclude the best next steps for your organisation.   Analyse each row separately (the answer may not be the same for each element) and then make conclusions as to, on balance, your overall progress to Business Excellence.

Elements	Starting	Aware	Successful	Excellent Overall Performance	Sustainable Business Excellence
Customer Focus			x
Leadership			x
Involvement of people		x
Process approach		x
System approach to management				x
Innovation and continual improvement		x
Factual approach to management			x
Mutually beneficial supplier relationships		x

Summarised below is learning that may be of use to help you conclude how to proceed and what techniques may best support your efforts. 

If you see your organisation as predominately at the starting or aware positions..

ISO 9001 has assisted many organisations moving from the "starting" to the "successful" positions and beyond, by helping them demonstrate their capabilities in a widely accepted framework.   This standard can particularly help enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of management systems, including processes for continual improvement and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable regulatory body requirements.

ISO 9004 is a useful guide for an organisation that wishes to improve on the foundational base of ISO 9001.   The practices described in this guide may add value by making your management system increasingly effective and efficient and to extend the scope of application and benefits obtained to all parties that are interested in, or affected by your business operations.   In this guide the objectives of customer satisfaction and product quality are extended to include the satisfaction of all interested parties and the performance of the organisation.

An Excellence Model provides a non prescriptive framework that can guide an organisation on the journey to sustainable business excellence.   It can be useful in the starting or aware phases to assess the organisation's status and to provide guiding visions for the next steps on the journey to Sustainable Business Excellence as well as a way to compare with and learn from others.

If you see your organisation as predominately at aware, successful or excellent overall performance maturity levels.  

The foundational systems of ISO 9001 continue to be important but as organisations progress past the "starting" and "aware" levels, there is a need to adopt more sophisticated management practices to accommodate and drive growth.

During this phase of growth, organisations often face the risk of misalignment of effort.   Symptoms may include the use of isolated initiatives that do not achieve their full potential.

ISO 9004 can help build management systems that do not just provide customer confidence but also help improve and strategically align the management practices of the organisation.

Consideration should also be given to continuing to use performance management frameworks.   Based on performance excellence models, these management frameworks will help you measure if your approaches are well defined and deployed, and if desired outcomes are being efficiently and effectively achieved.

If you think you are approaching the sustainable business excellence maturity level..

You are probably ready to enhance your internal learning by increasing the external comparisons and analyses of your performance.   Using Performance Excellence models can be of benefit at all phases of the journey but particularly at this higher level.   At this maturity level they will help to bring external perspective to your analysis and planning of improvement.

The use of ISO 9001 based management systems continues to remain important to providing confidence that your achievements are real and repeatable.

•  What is the conclusion?

The combined use of ISO 9001, ISO 9004 and the Performance Excellence Models can provide guidance, assessment, and measurement to help you on your journey to sustainable business excellence.   Once you achieve sustainable business excellence, the continued use of these management systems will help keep your organisation successful.

What are the key management principles of the ISO 9000 standards and most performance excellence models?

ISO 9000 standards and performance excellence models are based on management principles that reflect the fundamental ideas of a good management.   This section lists the principles of each key methodology and provides hyperlinks to their websites for further explanation.

The principles of the standards and performance excellence models are as follows:

ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 - Quality management principles :

• Customer focus

• Leadership

• Involvement of people

• Process approach

• System approach to management

• Continual improvement

• Factual approach to decision making

• Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

Sponsors

National Sponsors

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

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State Sponsors - Platinum Sponsors

For more information on Gold Awards programme, please contact gold"-at-"aoq.org.au

Note replace "-at-" in email addresses with "@" to try and reduce spam.

For information of previous Awards and Awardees go to
Gold Award 2008
Gold Award 2007
Gold Award 2006
Gold Award 2005
Gold Award 2004
Gold Award Pre 2004

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