Jamshedpur, July 30: Tata Steel has won the “Sustained Excellence” award in the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) assessment for this year.

The award was given for sustaining 600-plus score out of the 1,000 for three years.

Managing director of Tata Steel B Muthuraman received the award from chairman of the Tata Group of Companies Ratan Tata at a function in Mumbai.

Earlier, the company had won the prestigious JRD QV Award in the year 2000. The award is conferred on the company scoring at least 600 out of the maximum score of 1,000.

So far, Tata Steel is the only company to win this award. Two other profit centres of Tata Steel — The Tubes Division and The Ferro Alloys and Minerals Division scoring over 500 points were also felicitated for “active promotion” of TBEM.

The award was instituted nine years ago in memory of the illustrious JRD Tata. It is based on The Tata Business Excellence Model adapted from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, USA. The JRD QV Award is meant for Tata Group companies only and is aimed to propel the Tata companies to measure themselves against a set of criteria, which are the hallmarks of a world class organisation.

As part of the assessment exercise the applicant companies are assessed by trained assessors on seven dimensions e.g., leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management and business results.

This year, Tata Steel scored 675 points indicating that the company has reached the position of being the industry leader. A senior Baldrige assessor from USA, Bob Osterhoff carried out the assessment of Tata Steel with other trained assessors from the Tata Group. Bob has done a number of assessments for the Baldrige Award in the US.

He said Tata Steel was among the best companies he had visited in terms of the willingness to learn and change.