ALGORITMI Business Excellence working group

In October 2013 the ALGORITMI Business Excellence working group (ABE-WG) was established with researchers from the different R&D lines and with people from key ALGORITMI partners, namely Bosch and CCG/ZGDV Institute. The Vision of this working group is “to be the first research centre awarded with the EFQM Model in 2020”.

International trends in scientific research quality management emphasize the need to focus institutional development on a philosophy of quality improvement, while utilizing performance indicator metrics in an effective output based system of quality management. The research environment is, however, one of the most difficult to establish a quality management system.

In today’s competitive and globalized world, Organizational Excellence is one of the preconditions for sustainable success. Therefore, closer attention should be paid in applying Models of Organizational Excellence, a concept that should not be considered as something that organizations will achieve in the short term, but as a management philosophy and a set of principles that will produce the best overall results in the medium and long term, providing, therefore, support to a sustainable future.

ALGORITMI will place quality improvement as the centre of all organizational and management efforts in an open and transparent manner and will continually review and enhance the operations. It is a critical part of ALGORITMI thinking that the best practice in determining and monitoring quality provision and quality improvement is an essential component of effective future provision in research, advanced teaching and knowledge transfer.

The EFQM Excellence Model (http://www.efqm.org/the-efqm-excellence-model) is a powerful diagnostic tool providing a learning opportunity for stakeholders to point out strengths and identify improvement opportunities. Historically, the EFQM Excellence Model had been exclusively used in the organizations context. However, it is ALGORITMI goal to apply the EFQM Model in order to promote the Excellence in and of the researcher centre.

The ABE-WG team

Paulo Sampaio (ABE-WG coordinator) – ALGORITMI IEM R&D Line
Ana Alice Baptista – ALGORITMI IST R&D Line
Paulo Garrido – ALGORITMI IE R&D Line
Cesar Analide – ALGORITMI CST R&D Line
José Oliveira – Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal
Francisco Duarte – Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal
Eduardo Pinto – UMinho School of Engineering Special Projects
João Oliveira – CCG/ZGDV Institute
Ana Lima – CCG/ZGDV Institute / EPMQ Lab
Mónica Melo – CCG/ZGDV Institute / EPMQ Lab

The ALGORITMI Centre journey to Excellence

In November 27, 2013, the first step of the ALGORITMI Centre in the path to Excellence took place in a workshop where had been together the WG ABE staff, the ALGORITMI Board, the Research Lines Coordinators, the Research Group Leaders, the Thematic Strands Coordinators and the ALGORITMI Staff. The main goal of this workshop had been to discuss and to identify a set of improvement areas and strengths of the ALGORITMI Research Centre, based on the Fundamental Concepts of Excellence and on the EFQM Model Criteria.

For more information, please see the EFQM Recognition Brochure 2014 and the Excellence_in_Action Report [PDF]