Ebène, 25 November 2020: The National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) launched today the third edition of the National Productivity and Quality Convention (NPQC) 2020/21 under the theme ‘Pursuing Productivity and Quality amidst COVID-19’.
Registration is hence now open to Mauritian organisations, in three distinct categories, namely large corporates, small and medium enterprises including micro-enterprises and public institutions/Government and parastatal bodies and registered associations, that will compete for Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. They will have up to the 29 January 2021 to submit their registration.
All participating organisations will benefit from an online training from 8 to 15 February 2021. Their projects will be assessed by a panel of local jurors from 15 to 19 March 2021. The local jurors will be from the academia, industries and business associations.
A panel of international jurors will then assess the projects of Gold awardees on 5 and 6 April, while the announcement of the Grand Winners will be done during an Award Ceremony scheduled on 8 April 2021.
The panel of international jurors will consist of Mr. D.K Srivastava, Executive Director of the Quality Circle Forum of India (QCFI), Mr. Jens Dyring Christensen, Senior Specialist, Sustainable Enterprises at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Mr. Getahun Tadesse Mekonen, founder and former Director General of the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute.
“The negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is still being felt worldwide and Mauritius, as a small island developing nation, is not spared from the impacts of this pandemic. Public and private organisations were and are still faced with daunting challenges regarding their resilience, for which they have to adapt to survive and eventually succeed,” Mr. Ashit Gungah, the Executive Director of the NPCC, said at the press launch of the Convention.
“The NPQC is the platform where they can share how they managed to adapt to the new normal. We are expecting projects from public and private organisations showcasing how they have fared through the pandemic, the ways and means they adopted to sustain their businesses and the level of their resilience," the Executive Director of the NPCC pointed out further.
It is to be noted that the 2020/2021 edition of the NPQC will consider projects implemented in 2019 and 2020. The Grand Winners will have the opportunity to participate in the 46th International Convention on Quality Control Circles (ICQCC), that will be held in Hyderabad, India in September 2021.
The NPQC is a platform in Mauritius where local organisations can participate and share knowledge, as well as deepen their understanding of productivity, quality, innovation in order to achieve sustainable growth and competitiveness. The NPQC encourages organisations to share their best operational practices, processes, systems, and initiatives and learn from the experience of others. It also provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of teams that have been responsible for creating and/or managing productivity and quality improvements at their workplace.
Grand Winners of the 2018 and 2019 NPQC editions were offered the opportunity to participate in the ICQCC 2018 and 2019 in Singapore and Japan respectively. Information about registration and other details are available on the website of the NPCC: https://www.npccmauritius.org/en/about-npqc.html