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OMI |
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Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award 2000 Award Recipient – Service Category
Operations Management International, Inc.
Denver — Headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colo., Operations Management International, Inc., operates and maintains more than 160 public and private- sector wastewater and water treatment facilities in 29 states and facilities in Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines and Thailand. OMI’s primary services are processing raw wastewater to produce clean, environmentally safe effluent and processing raw groundwater and surface water to produce clean, safe drinking water. Ninety-four percent of its customers are public, including cities and counties; 5 percent are industrial; and 1 percent are international. A private company owned by its employees, OMI is a member of the CH2M HILL family of companies. OMI’s 1,394 associates include facility operators, mechanics and laboratory technicians.
Quality and Business Performance Achievements
OMI’s annual average revenue per associate improved since 1997 from $92,600 to almost $108,000 in 2000. OMI’s total revenue has grown from about $80 million in 1996 to about $145 million in 2000. This is an average annual growth rate of 15 percent, while top competitor revenues dropped by 4.5 percent.
Since 1996, OMI’s market share in its core business segment has increased from about 50 percent to almost 60 percent, while during the same period its competitors’ share remained at less than 20 percent.
OMI’s “E3” motto, “Exceed our customers’ expectations, empower our employees, enhance the environment,” is the foundation for its Quality as a Business Strategy leadership system. The leadership team communicates organizational priorities and strategic direction to all of its sites, which develop business and action plans that are consistent with its overall strategy, yet are specific to a particular site.
Four strategic objectives—customer focus, business growth, innovation and market leadership—enable OMI to design management systems and processes that consistently achieve high performance, reduce operating costs, and satisfy customers and associates.
When OMI begins operating wastewater or water treatment facilities it often significantly reduces costs for its customers. In a survey of OMI projects from 1998 to 2000, after OMI took over management of the facility, operating costs for industrial customers were reduced by about 23 percent; for public customers, the savings were about 21 percent.
A survey last year of OMI’s 19 industrial clients found that OMI never fails to meet expectations and 88 percent say the company exceeds expectations. OMI’s client satisfaction rating increased by 13.5 percent between 1992 and 1998 to a level of 5.47, on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 7 (outstanding). Satisfaction for its major competitor increased only 10 percent to a level of 5.05.
OMI’s average rate of lost time due to accidents declined from 6.3 in 1997 to 1.6 in 1999. The national average is 7.3. The average reportable incident rate declined from 9.6 in 1996 to 5.8 in 2000, compared to a national average of 13.4. Occupational Safety and Health Administration citations declined from 11 in 1997 to 0 through the third quarter in 2000.
OMI increased the size of its workforce by 50 percent over the past two years. Associate turnover decreased from 25.5 percent in 1994 to 15.5 percent in 1999, better than the national average of 18.6 percent and the service industry average of 27.1 percent.
OMI has won more than 100 federal, state and local awards for environmental excellence in the past five years; more than half of these were earned in the last two years.
OMI provides a broad array of training opportunities for its workforce, including a six-day "Obsessed with Quality" orientation program, OMI University for management and leadership development, on-the-job training, and mentoring. OMI’s expenditures on training and tuition almost doubled from 1996 to 2000.
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