Business & Money | Saturday 23 May, 2015 12:50 am |

Argentina’s Movistar-Telefónica de Argentina “Weaving a Quality Network” team was awarded gold-level status at ASQ’s International Team Excellence Awards for increasing its organization’s quality and financial savings.
ASQ announced the winner — along with other winners — at its World Conference on Quality and Improvement in Nashville, Tenn., USA. In its 30th year, 36 finalist teams from 12 countries competed for gold, silver and bronze status.

The ITEA process is the only one of its kind that recognizes organizations worldwide for deploying team-based process improvement. The ITEA criteria provide a framework to enable teams to efficiently contribute to organizational improvement efforts.

Since 1985, more than 1,150 organizations of all sizes have showcased proven business results with long-term implications, resulting in savings of millions of U.S. dollars.
Gold, silver and bronze awards are presented to teams that meet specific scoring criteria for each award level. If no teams meet the required criteria for a gold, silver or bronze award, no award is given at that level. No team in this year’s award process earned silver-level status.

The Movistar-Telefónica de Argentina “Weaving a Quality Network” team used Lean Six Sigma to reduce defects and improve the process of constructing sites to provide coverage of cell phones in Argentina. The result accelerated revenue streams of more than US$2.7 million annually.

“Participating in the competition is one of the most motivating events — not just for winning — but for talking to other teams and learning from them,” said Mathias Gadda Thompson, quality manager for Telefónica.

Other teams recognized included:
Bronze level:
Alcoa – Power and Propulsion, APP Process Management Team, Whitehall, Mich., USA.
BNY Mellon International Operations Private Limited, GAMO, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Movistar – Telefónica de Argentina, You Can Do It!, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Wipro, Wipro PEX, Pune, Maharashtra, India.