CforC Celebrates NI Businesses at Innovate & Transform Conference & Awards

Pictured presenting at the Innovate & Transform Conference is Enda Lagan, Chief Operating Officer at Moyola Precision Engineering.

DURING an awards ceremony hosted by the Centre for Competitiveness (CforC) on Tuesday 29th March, two companies from Northern Ireland, Denroy Plastics and Moyola Precision Engineering were awarded EFQM Six Star status and are the first companies in the UK to hold such a prestigious accolade.

EFQM is an internationally recognised change management framework which helps organisations to perform better by creating data-driven insights backed up by industry experts, to fit a company’s priorities, purpose and people.

In terms of the levels of recognition, companies must complete a self-assessment before a team of assessors review the submission and spend three to four days on site at the premises of the business to review every aspect of the activity. After undergoing the rigorous assessment, companies are then given a star rating based on their overall score.

Alongside Denroy Plastics and Moyola Precision Engineering, a number of other companies were recognised at the awards event which took place at Titanic, Belfast. Choice Housing achieved four star; Bradfor Ltd and RTA International and Technical Metals achieved five star; and First Western and Impact Funding Partners were validated by EFQM.

A number of speakers also took to the stage to highlight best practice innovation strategies including Matt Byrom from Siemens and Denis O’Leary, Head of Smart Energy Technologies at ESB.

Speaking about the event and congratulating those that achieved the industry awards, Bob Barbour, CforC’s Director and Chief Executive said: “On behalf of everyone at CforC, I would like to say congratulations to all the companies that achieved EFQM recognition and especially to Denroy Plastics and Moyola Precision Engineering, which are the first organisations in the UK to hold EFQM Six Star recognition. This is an exceptional achievement.

“The EFQM programme is extremely stringent, and participants need to meet the rigid standards of criteria.

“The achievement of these awards is testament to those within each company, their hard work, determination and dedication to continuous improvement, which during the age of Industry 4.0, Net Zero and the Department for the Economy’s (DfE) 10X Economic Strategy, cannot be underestimated.

“We hope that all those in attendance were able to gain some insights into the various best practice approaches from our quest speakers, which will assist with whatever challenges that may come in the future.

“I would also like to sincerely thank our event sponsors – NIE Networks, Spirit AeroSystems, Balcas Energy and Belfast Harbour – for their generosity.”

Denroy’s Managing Director, John Irwin said: “We were delighted to receive the EFQM six star. As a leading innovator in the design and manufacture of engineered polymer components and solutions, with partners both internationally and locally to collaborate with, this award reflects our team’s hard work and the company’s continuous improvement performance in what is a positive and constructive atmosphere.”

Mark Semple, Managing Director of Moyola Precision Engineering commented: “The EFQM journey started in 2017 and some five years later, the company has achieved the six star award – a remarkable achievement for the team at Moyola. The key objective was to ensure that there was a structured and integrated approach to improvement within the company and, of course, validation of our work through an internationally recognised assessment framework. We have achieved this through this programme and the award of EFQM six star.”

Geoff Carter, from EFQM added: “It was fantastic to see so many companies achieving EFQM recognition – many congratulations to all!

“Our aim through EFQM is to help companies to develop a culture of sustainable improvement and innovation which is vital to progress in the modern business world.

We hope that even more companies will be inspired to sign up for the EFQM programme which can assist any business, regardless of sector.”

For more information about the EFQM programme, visit: www.cforc.org.