The EFQM Excellence Model, European Foundation for Quality Management, has been introduced as the basic framework for evaluating and improving organizations. It is a model that illustrates the sustainability advantage that a transcendental organization must achieve.

Choosing appropriate approaches and aligning them together and trying to deploy process-based management are among the activities that are well suited to this managerial framework. When it is accompanied by self-assessment, it reveals the strengths and improvement fields of the organization and the improvement programs can be defined based on them. By implementing the improvement programs, the effectiveness of the approaches is enhances and the achievement of the goals of the organization becomes possible.

At a glance the topics related to excellence include three components and two main uses & their relationship with each other which are shown in the figure below.

Fundamental Concepts of Excellence

The fundamental concepts of excellence are the concepts upon which the model of excellence is based and are in fact the foundation of the model. These concepts are derived from the basic beliefs of companies and transcendental organizations. Organizations that have worked in practice with the belief in these concepts are companies that have survived at business history and are consistent with the views of management think tanks on the goals that the organization must meet. These concepts are as follows:

Criteria and their score in EFQM Excellence Model

The EFQM Excellence Model is a non-prescriptive model consisting of 9 criteria. These criteria are the core and heart of this model and are the basis for the evaluation of the organization.

The criteria of this model are divided into two categories:

A) Empowering Criteria: it included the first five criteria of this model and are factors that will empower the organization to achieve excellent outcomes.

B) Results: the results and outcomes that excellent organizations achieve in different fields and reflects the achievements of the proper implementation of empowerment criteria.

In the EFQM Model, the criteria have a total of 1000 points (500 points for empowerment and 500 points for results) the point of each criterion is a percentage of the total points.

The path of excellence in the AKPC

After the establishment of ISO standards in the complex since 2005, the move has begun to transcend the organization's processes. In 2008, the project BPI to improve organizational processes aimed at identifying and improving all the company's processes was planned & implemented.

Moving on the path of excellence based on the EFQM model began in 2009. Initially, with the presence of instructors from the consulting company, the training and culturalization phases of the model’s deployment were started in summer of 2010 in the form of three courses for familiarity with the EFQM model, describing the requirements of model criteria and assessment period for 75 personnel including managers, Bosses and experts of different units of the organization. Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company, after various stages such as self-assessment and preparation of the initial declaration, eventually won the Certificate of Commitment at the first Iranian Petrochemical Industry Excellence Award.

In the 2011, the deployment of the EFQM model was more systematically perused. After selecting the project consultant, the project charter was also finalized and the self-assessment workshops in different areas of the company were classified and identified according to the requirements of the organizational excellence model.

At this stage, after the implementation of the project training phase, the project documentation phase in the field of organizational excellence was carried out for self-assessment and development of the improvement program. Eventually, the AKPC won the 2-star Acknowledgment at the 2^nd Petrochemical Industry Excellence Award.

Based on management decisions and for further preparation, Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company did not participate in the Award Process in 2013, after which it won 3-star acknowledgement in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, after self-assessment, a list of improvement projects was prepared and prioritized by the company's experts in accordance with the guidelines, and the prioritized projects were implemented which resulted in the receipt of  a 4-star acknowledgement in the same year and a 5-star acknowledgement in 2017. In 2018, in an initiative action along with the main 13- command committees of excellence, the sub-committees including experts and supervisors from different layers of the organization were selected. They are currently employed to advance the improvement projects such as the establishment of enterprise risk management ISO 31000, empiricism and organizational knowledge collection, ERP deployment in the organization, and other related matters.

Regarding to the company’s grand vision in 2021 and a reviews of the strategic plans of the company, the entire improvement activities are systematically and integrated in cooperation with the various units of the complex being pursued & implemented and if God wants, we will soon see very good developments at the company level, which certainly will lead to organizational excellence.