Maliban clinches Sri Lanka National Quality Award

Maliban Biscuit Manufactories Limited received the Sri Lanka National Quality Award (NQA) in the large scale-manufacturing category from the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) for the third time and is the first company in the food manufacturing industry to be recognised with such a prestigious award. As Sri Lanka’s premier biscuit manufacturer, Maliban Biscuit Manufactories Limited first won the award in 1996 and again in 2010, which has demonstrated the company’s consistency and commitment to quality.

The NQA is an annual award to recognise Sri Lankan companies for performance excellence. First implemented in 1995, award winners are selected on the criteria used in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (MBNQA) of the USA. The objective of the award is to promote awareness in quality as an increasingly important tool  in enhancing competitiveness, promote an understanding of the factors contributing to performance excellence, encourage companies to embrace improvement models, recognise organisations which excel in quality management practices, share information on successful performance strategies and benefits derived from implementation of these strategies, and to create a vision of excellence and provide a basis to achieve it at national level.

The evaluation process comprises of a desktop evaluation by individual examiners and by a team of examiners, along with a site-visit evaluation by a team. Subsequently, a review committee analyses the scores and recommends award recipients to the panel of judges, who will select the main award winners, the winners of merit certificates and commendation certificates.

A prominent and distinguished panel of judges headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka or Court of Appeal execute a careful selection process to choose organisations in the manufacturing, service and healthcare sectors, belonging to large, medium and small scale industries. The panel of judges also include the Chairman –SLSI, Director General – SLSI, Deputy Director General - SLSI, Secretary to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research, Secretaries of several selected ministries, the President of the Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industries of Sri Lanka and the Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Seven major performance excellence evaluation criteria is used by the panel of judges, which include leadership, strategic, customer, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, the workforce, operations and results.

As one of the few food businesses that have the ISO 22000 certification relating to food safety management systems, Maliban was the first biscuit manufacturer that was awarded the Super Brand status. As a testament to the trust and confidence placed on brand Maliban, the company was bestowed with more honours in 2010/2011 including the Taiki Akimoto 5S Merit Award, the ITQI Super Taste Award by the International Taste and Quality Institute of Brussels for Cream Cracker, Gold Marie and Chocolate Cream biscuits, the CNCI Achievers (Bronze) Award, the NCE Export (Silver) Award, the National Cleaner Production (Silver) Award and the Geo Responsibility Gold Award.  

With the NQA, Maliban Biscuit Manufactories Limited has emerged as a role model for best practices, which it intends to share with other organisations. As an assessment of the company’s performance, the most recent award will be a tool to steer future improvement and to upgrade performance at Maliban, a company that has become synonymous with many celebrated brands of biscuits.

The recognition will also help the company to respond more effectively to customer requirements and in the strategic planning process. The national award has reinforced the company’s continued commitment to quality, and as the recipient of the NQA, Maliban will be eligible to use this recognition in its advertising campaigns and publicity programmes, which in turn would enhance its standing in the public domain. The NQA has given Maliban Biscuit Manufactories Limited the impetus to vie for international recognition in quality such as to compete at the Asia Pacific Quality Award.