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Bama gets the blue ribbon

DEBBIE BLOSSOM World Staff Writer
11/24/2004
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A1 of News
 
Paula Marshall Chapman, chief executive officer of Bama Cos. Inc., celebrates with Mayor Bill LaFortune at a press conference Tuesday to announce the Tulsa company has won a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. SHERRY BROWN / Tulsa World
 
The Tulsa pie maker is named Oklahoma's first winner of the
national Malcolm Baldrige award.
A Tulsa company has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Commerce and President Bush for its business achievements and quality performance.

The Bama Cos. Inc. is one of four recipients of a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for 2004. The prestigious award is presented annually in the categories of manufacturing, service, small business, education and health care.

Bama, which manufactures biscuits, pies, cookies and a variety of frozen doughs for food-service and retail companies across the globe, was selected from a pool of 60 applicants and was the top choice in the manufacturing niche.

The company has 1,002 employees here at its BAMA PIE, Bama Foods and Bama Frozen Dough

divisions, and 120 in Beijing, China.

"We've been celebrating all day," Paula Marshall Chapman, Bama's chief executive, said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. "This has been a very long journey for Bama, but well worth it."

The company has spent part of the past 10 years working toward the award, Marshall Chapman said, and had applied several times, starting in 1991.

"The recognition is so meaningful to Bama because we know how intense, objective and rigorous a company is viewed by the examiners and judges," she said. "The process is planned to ensure that only the most outstanding organizations are recognized."

No other Oklahoma-based company or organization has received the award.

Mayor Bill LaFortune praised Marshall Chapman's ongoing efforts in pitching Tulsa to others, and presented her with a certificate proclaiming Nov. 23, 2004, as "Bama Day."

Organizations applying for the award are evaluated by an independent board of examiners made up of private-sector experts in quality and business.

The board looks for achievements and improvements in seven categories -- leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, human resource focus, process management and business results.

Bama underwent a site visit from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3, where eight board members visited the company's various plants, talked with employees and completed background checks, Marshall Chapman said.

The Bama CEO said previous feedback from past examiners on the company was used to eliminate weaknesses even as the company worked to upgrade and maintain quality, tighten relationships with customers and encourage leadership and loyalty from employees.

Bama's strength lies in its 10-year plan for the future, partnerships with employees and longtime dealings with customers, Marshall Chapman said.

"We have a 39-year relationship with McDonald's, and that's almost unheard of in today's business climate. We haven't raised customer prices since 1996."

Bama, which was founded in 1937, reached a business milestone in the 1960s when McDonald's began selling the Tulsa company's fried apple pie.

Other large customers today include Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

Overall, Bama now produces more than 2 million biscuits and 1.5 million pies daily, making it one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of those products.

The Baldrige award is gratifying for Bama, Marshall Chapman said, and shows that U.S. businesses are as competitive as businesses anywhere in the world.

"It means that the things we do have been recognized by the Commerce Department as being world-class."

But it also portrays Tulsa in a favorable light, showcasing the city as a community with an outstanding work force that can compete with the likes of China, she said. "This gives us a great story to tell."

Marshall Chapman said the award also presents a wonderful opportunity to share what has worked at Bama with other companies through seminars.

"Bama looks forward to being an advocate for 'quality' by educating and informing other organizations on the benefits of using the Baldrige criteria to improve overall performance."

The Malcolm Baldrige award program was established by Congress in 1987 to honor U.S. organizations for quality and performance achievements and to bring attention to the role both play in providing a competitive edge. The first honors were presented in 1988.

The award was named after Malcolm Baldrige, former U.S. secretary of commerce, who was a proponent of quality management as a key to this country's prosperity and strength.

The other recipients for 2004 are Dallas-based Texas Nameplate Co. Inc., small business; Kenneth W. Monfort College of Business in Greely, Co., education; and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital-Hamilton, in Hamilton, N.J., health care.

Some past winners included Boeing Aerospace Support, based in St. Louis; The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. in Atlanta; Detroit's Cadillac Motor Car Division; Jacksonville, Fla.-based Merrill Lynch Credit Corp.; and Texas Instruments Inc.'s Defense Systems and Electronics Group in Dallas.

The Baldrige award joins other honors Bama has received. In 1994, the company was given the Oklahoma Quality Award. Two years later, Bama was chosen by McDonald's for the fast-food chain's highest quality honor given to suppliers, the Sweeney award.

Bama, which had sales last year of about $210 million, announced in August it will consolidate its corporate offices in a 1920s-era art deco building near 11th Street and Delaware Avenue.

That project follows others Bama has undertaken in the past four years to respond to growth. Last year, Bama announced plans for a $20 million expansion of its facility at 2530 E. 11th St. and the creation of 100 full-time jobs. The project included a new dough line and the expansion of another. During the two years prior to that, Bama increased its production of products to the food services industry, hiring 200 people to meet the demand.

Beginning in 2000, Bama spent $13 million on a third dough line at the Bama Frozen Dough plant on North Lewis Avenue. It also opened a research and development center and test kitchen in the 11th Street facility.

In addition, Bama purchased a bread bakery in Lawton and invested $1 million when it started Bama On-Line, which sells gourmet pies over the Internet.