The 2017 Ministry of Defence Quality Awards

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Meet the quality professionals who have made an exceptional contribution in championing effective quality management in the military and defence industry.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) Quality Awards, sponsored by CQI, are an ideal opportunity to highlight the merits of adopting a quality approach and celebrate successes both in the MOD and industry. It rewards those who have led the way in promoting how governance, assurance and improvement has brought significant benefit to their teams or organisations.

“The CQI is really pleased to support the MOD quality awards again this year,” says Vincent Desmond, CQI’s acting chief executive. “This initiative by the MOD supports the CQI’s desire to promote the value of good quality management to organisations, and these awards highlight exactly what that benefit is and how quality professionals make it happen in the military and civilian defence context.”

The 2017 awards were presented at the annual MOD Quality Event in Bristol on 8 November by Air Vice-Marshal Mike Quigley, MOD defence authority for technical and quality assurance, and deputy head of profession for quality. During the ceremony, the audience were inspired by a presentation from Lieut-Colonel Chris Gibson whose team won an award in 2016 for the creation of an Ebola treatment capability.

“The MOD Quality Awards are an excellent way of recognising and rewarding exemplary performance in quality by MOD staff and industry partners,” says Quigley. “The standard of nominations this year was of high calibre and I would like to thank those of you who recognised the contribution that an individual or team had made. We all can adopt a quality approach whether it is our profession or not. Where this is done well it needs to be celebrated through events such as this.”

This initiative by the MOD supports the CQI’s desire to promote the value of good quality management to organisations
Vincent Desmond, CQI’s acting chief executive

Phil Jones, DE&S Air Platform Systems quality manager, is one of the recipients of the Rising Star award. “It gives me a sense of pride to be part of an organisation that recognises the contribution of Quality to the internal business and its outputs,” he says. “Receiving the award gave me a sense of determination to continue to achieve the standard I have set so far. I think the awards should drive everyone in the business to aspire to achieve the level set previously, particularly by the speaker who won the award for setting up hospitals during the Ebola outbreak.”

Winning the Best Improvement award brought a sense of community pride to Paul Graham, who is part of the DE&S Support Enablers Operating Centre (SEOC) – Support Chain Information Services (SCIS), Business Improvement and Optimisation Team. “When you are working hard on an activity it’s easy to forget to stop and count your successes, so I am grateful to our sponsor for submitting the application,” he says. “I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with such a great team and feel an immense pride in being selected to win a MOD Quality Award. Living and working in Bristol, it was especially pleasing to see that the award itself was crafted from Bristol Blue Glass – such a thoughtful touch.”

Mark Shanley, global business manager at Astute, is involved with the MOD and Industry Counterfeit Avoidance Working Group. His team received the Inspiring Leadership award. Speaking proudly about his team’s win, Mark said: “It’s refreshing to be part of a working group that is a market leader in the fight against counterfeit components entering the Ministry of Defence supply chain”.

MOD Quality Award 2017 Winners

Best Improvement

Defence Primary Healthcare, Scotland and Northern Ireland Region
DE&S Support Enablers Operating Centre (SEOC) – Support Chain Information Services (SCIS) Business Improvement and Optimisation Team
Joint Intelligence Training Group (JITG) GAI Department

Rising Star