The National Productivity and Quality Excellence Award (NPQEA) was launched on Thursday 1st December at the NPCC, taking forward the journey started by the National Productivity and Quality Convention (NPQC) on a stronger foothold towards a more robust platform to help local organisations evolve with greater performance and efficiency.
Following discussions at the level of the Council and with other stakeholders, it was agreed that the NPCC should give a new dimension in the quest to achieve higher productivity and competiveness. For the NPQEA, the criteria have been reviewed for organisations to embark on a journey towards excellence. This will enable them to benchmark themselves and become more productive and competitive through continuous improvement.
The NPQEA aims primarily at raising awareness about the importance of fostering a culture of excellence among Mauritian organisations to achieve higher productivity and competitiveness. It will also provide recognition to organisations that are making continuous efforts to improve management and operational practices and identify role models for others to emulate and use as benchmark.
“Our economic development strategy focuses on growth through innovation. It’s through innovation that we will improve our productivity performance and achieve stronger economic growth and greater well-being for all Mauritians. We need all businesses to understand that improving productivity is everyone’s issue and that we all need to tackle it together. This means government working in partnership with businesses and private sector organizations to take this agenda forward together,” the Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives, Hon Soomilduth Bholah, pointed out in his speech at the launch event.
The NPQEA is open to all public and private enterprises and organisations in all sectors. Organisations in the following categories are eligible to apply for NPQEA 2022/23:
- Small & Medium private enterprises including micro enterprises (annual turnover of less than Rs 50 million)
- Large private enterprises (annual turnover of more than Rs 50 million)
- Government departments, parastatals and registered associations
“Quality and productivity are the imperatives of production and operations management today. Most organisations, if not all, are trying to offer quality products/services with attention to productivity. These constitute the basic minimum for the survival of any company in the present competitive business world,” said the Executive Director of the NPCC, Mr. Ashit Gungah.
The Executive Director also mentioned that the NPCC has been identified as a potential Africa Kaizen Initiative – Centre of Excellence for Africa together with Productivity South Africa, l’Unité de Gestion du Programme National de Promotion de la Qualité et de la Productivité (UGPQP) of Tunisia and the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute. A Capacity Enhancement Programme for all National Productivity Organisations (NPOs), Kaizen Units in Africa is scheduled next year to exchange experiences and provide training on the six criteria of a Centre of Excellence.
Registration for NPQEA 2022/23, applicants have to register online by the 17 February 2023. It should be noted that up to two entries per organisation (two teams) are allowed in each category. Projects should be related to productivity and quality improvement in areas including quality circles, innovation, business excellence, productivity improvement, lean management, digital transformation and sustainability. The projects should have been implemented in 2021 and 2022 as well as during the first quarter of 2023 to be eligible. After their registration, participating organisations will benefit from a training on the criteria of NPQEA and assessments by the panel of jurors will start in mid-April.
Gold, Silver and Bronze awards or a certificate of participation will be presented to participants. The Grand Winners in each category will receive a memento and an Award Certificate. The winners will be eligible to represent Mauritius in regional and international platforms such as the International Convention on Quality Control Circle (ICQCC) to be held in 2023 in Beijing, China and the African Kaizen Award (AKA) 2023.
More information on the NPQEA 2022/23 is available on the following link: https://npccmauritius.org/en/npqea-202223.html
