Interview with Process Excellence Award Winners 2011

PEX Network’s 2011 Process Excellence Awards were announced at a gala ceremony at our flagship Process Excellence Summit in Orlando, Florida. The awards honour process excellence projects and individuals that have demonstrated innovation and impact in their approach to solving some of the biggest challenges in business today.

An independent panel of operational excellence practitioners working in process excellence judges submissions and assesses them against set criteria. Judges then interview shortlisted finalists in a face-to-face interview process before making their final decision.

Below is a listing of interviews with a selection of the winners and runners up for the Process Excellence Awards 2011, announced in January in Orlando.

For a full list of award winners please click here.

Best Process Improvement in Service and Transaction Project(Large corporations category)

Winner: Firstsource Solutions Ltd BFSI - Improving TAT to Offer Compliance for Stores Channel

ARTICLE: How One BPO Provider Achieved Faster Loan Processing Times & Improved Customer Satisfaction

Jaspreet Raina, general manager at FirstSource Solutions, joins PEX Network to discuss a project that the business process outsourcing provider carried out in order to reduce the time needed to process loan applications for a major UK bank, improving the end-to-end customer experience and boosting customer satisfaction scores in the process. The project won the Process Excellence Network’s award for the best process improvement in services and transaction project for large corporations earlier this year. Read now.

Honorable Mention: Florida Hospital - Increasing satisfaction and capacity in the Cath Lab

VIDEO: Improving Efficiency: The Case of Florida Hospital’s Cath Lab

When Florida Hospital decided to build new facilities to house its Cath lab facilities, it needed a major process revamp. "The department went from being maybe a few labs down in the basement," says Ashley Simmons Cochran, Performance Improvement Consultant at the hospital. "To being the size of a football field in a brand new tower." Everything that wasn't working efficiently before, she says, was exacerbated by the scale of the new facilities.

In this IQPC video interview, Simmons Cochran describes the project that won Florida hospital an honorable mention in the category of Best Process Improvement in Service and Transaction project at IQPC's Process Excellence Awards announced last month in Orlando. She describes how the Cath lab went from on time starts 21 % of the time before the improvement work, to on-time starts consistently around 85% of the time. She also offers tips on how you can get engagement at all levels even from people who are reticent to express their opinions. Watch now.

Best Project Contributing to Innovation

Winner: Capgemini Business Services (India) Ltd - Transformation in Outsourcing Solution: A New Horizon

PODCAST: Cap Gemini - Winner of 2011 Best Project Contributing to Innovation

How do you make sure that your relationship with your outsourcing partner is functioning as well as it could be? Capgemini won the Process Excellence Network's award for "Best Project Contributing to Innovation" for a project entitled "Transformation in Outsourcing Solution: A New Horizon". In this Profit through Process podcast, Rangaraj Sriramulu, Director of Delivery Excellence at Capgemini BPO, details the improvements that Capgemini made in order to reduce the time it takes to transition a process over from a client. Listen now.

Best Start Up Program

Winner: Singtel - Where Eagles Dare

PODCAST: SingTel: Best Start Up Lean Six Sigma Program Award Winner

A fast moving industry, a business growing by acquisition and expanding its service offering, and processes that were straining under the pressure? Sound familiar? Those are the challenges that faced Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, Asia's answer to America's AT&T, when they decided to launch "Where Eagles Dare" start up Lean Six Sigma program that won Process Excellence Network's Best Start Up program earlier this year.

Yew Ker Ling, Vice President, Center of Operational Excellence at SingTel discusses Singtel's program and the imperatives for the company to adopt Lean Six Sigma, explains the company's approach and why the Eagle was an apt metaphor for the transition the company had to go through. Listen Now.

Notable Mention: United Nations - United Nations Lean Six Sigma Capacity Building Program

ARTICLE: Lean Six Sigma Boosts Peace Keeping Operations

The United Nations won a notable mention at IQPC’s Process Excellence Network’s awards earlier this year in the category Best Start Up Lean Six Sigma Program. Donna Maxfield, Chief of Staff for the United Nations Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support, joined PEX Network to describe how the UN is using Lean Six Sigma to improve the efficiency of its peacekeeping operations. Read now.

Best Green Process Improvement Project

Winner: LSG Sky Chefs - Dishwash Process Change 2010

PODCAST: How LSG Skychefs saved the environment AND millions of dollars

Ingo Lieser, Global Lean Director at LSG Sky Chefs describes how the company's "Dishwash Process Change 2010" project generated ten of millions of dollars in savings, reduced energy consumption by 50% and water consumption by 75%. Listen now.

Honorable mention: JEA - Reduce Nitrogren Discharge to the St. John’s River from Wastewater Treatment Processing

ARTICLE: Green Innovation: How Bad Plus Bad Can Equal Good

One of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in Florida came up with an interesting way of reducing its environmental impact - add hazardous waste to the water! Their project, which looked at reducing nitrogen discharge into the St. John's River, won JEA an honorable mention for Best Project contributing to Green Innovation at Process Excellence Awards earlier this year. Arthur Nettles, Operations Coordinator at JEA, tells us more. Read now.

Master Black Belt of the Year

Winner: Dr. Anurag Mishra - Firstsource Solutions Ltd.

VIDEOS: Six Sigma is a Symphony and Other Master Black Belt Insights

The role of a Master Black Belt is akin to that of a orchestral conductor, says Anurag Mishra, a Master Black Belt with business process outsourcing provider Firstsource Solutions Ltd. Mishra won IQPC's Process Excellence Award for Master Black Belt of the Year 2011. In this video interview, Mishrag describes how one of the key roles of a Master Black Belt is to help keep everyone playing in sync. "One of the very key roles is a facilitator - a change manager - you have to work with all levels of the organization," he says. Part of this is about picking the right projects and how they link to the strategy of the overall company, but most importantly, he says, it's about building up the skills of your people in order to multiply the capability of your company. Watch now.

Community Contribution of the Year

Winner: Diane Francisco, Covance

VIDEO: Ingredients for Process Success: Empowerment and the Right Tools

Process Improvement is not difficult, it's about empowering people and using the right tools to get things done, says Diane Francisco, Director of Client Solutions at Pharmaceutical company Covance Laboratories. In this video interview, Francisco, who won IQPC's Process Excellence Network's Best Community Contribution award for 2010, describes the importance of learning from others and of sharing your own experiences. "Don't think that what you've encountered wouldn't be of interest or of help to somebody else," she says. Watch now.

Highlights – Judging and Awards

VIDEO: Judges Describes 2011 Nominees for IQPC’s Process Excellence Awards

Judges for IQPC's Process Excellence Awards describe the quality of this year's entrants and nominees. The Process Excellence Awards celebrate process excellence initiatives that have delivered outstanding results in a variety of categories, including "Best Improvement Program", "Best Project Under 90 Days" and "Deployment Leader of the Year". The awards were presented earlier this week at the annual Profit through Process conference in Orlando, Florida. Watch now.

VIDEO: 2011 Process Excellence Awards Announced at Annual Summit

Hospitals, manufacturers, and even the United Nations were among those awarded top honors at this year's Process Excellence Awards in Orlando Florida. The awards celebrate process excellence initiatives that have delivered outstanding results in a variety of categories, including "Best Improvement Program", "Best Project Under 90 Days" and "Deployment Leader of the Year". Watch as the awards are announced in this PEXNetwork.com video report. Watch now.

VIDEO: Where are they now? A 2010 Best Start Up Improvement Program Award Winner

PolyOne - a global industrial manufacturer - won IQPC's Best Start Up program of the year in 2010. As we launch our video interviews with winner's of the 2011 awards, the Process Excellence Networks speaks with Tom Kedrowski, SVP of Supply Chain, Operations, and Process Improvement at PolyOne, to discuss what the company is up to now. Watch now.