DIS | Department of Information Systems

DIS Receives Top Honor from Arkansas Governor's Quality Award Program

LITTLE ROCKâ€" The Arkansas Department of Information Systems (DIS) was one of two organizations to win the coveted Governor’s Award for Performance Excellence at the 17th annual Governor’s Quality Awards banquet held Monday, October 17, at the Peabody Hotel.

Several hundred business and civic leaders were on hand as DIS, representing the public sector, and Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute in Little Rock, on behalf of the private sector, were presented with the top honor from the Arkansas Institute for Performance Excellence which runs the Governor’s Quality Award program.

“Quality is a way of life,” said DIS Director Claire Bailey upon accepting the award. “This means never giving up and constantly striving to do what is best not only for your own job, but for your employees, peers, constituents, entities and stakeholders you serve to affirm that you never want to accept anything less than excellence.”

The Governor’s Quality Award program aligns its award criteria with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program. These criteria cover seven areas of doing business: 1) Leadership; 2) Strategic Planning; 3) Customer and Market Focus; 4) Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management; 5) Human Resource Focus; 6) Process Management; and 7) Results.

“Following these criteria has made us a better agency, a stronger agency, and a process oriented agency,” Bailey said.

Monday’s ceremony included four award levels (in descending order of qualification): the Governor’s Award, the Achievement Award, the Commitment Award and the Challenge Award. DIS has previously been recognized by the Arkansas Institute for Performance Excellence with Achievement Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

The Governor’s Quality Award program is intended to create a system for measuring progress and growth. Its goal is to encourage Arkansas organizations to engage in continuous quality improvement. In all, 23 businesses, schools or state agencies received one of the four awards.