Baking & Snack - April 2005 - 33

Bama's vision, leadership, integrity, strategic focus and
process work together to allow it to achieve its mission:
"People helping people be successful." At Bama, highranking officials know that successful companies care
about each employee and so, they do. And it shows.
Bama encourages employees to seek a college education by providing tuition reimbursement - one factor that helps employee satisfaction rate so high. And
since 2001, employee turnover at Bama has been about
14% annually. According to the company's Baldrige
Information Center, the average turnover in the Tulsa
area is 20%.
Employees are given paid time off to volunteer for
corporate-sponsored projects during work hours. The
number of hours Bama employees donated to organizations such as Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity and
Emergency Infant Services has increased from 500 hours
in 2000 to nearly 7,000 hours in 2004.
NO COMPLAINTS. Bama's customers are happy, too. After compiling several customer service initiatives, Bama
learned that overall customer satisfaction for its national accounts has increased from 75% in 2001 to nearly
100% in 2004. The food manufacturing benchmark for
customer satisfaction is 85%, according to its Baldrige
Information Center.
Customers are happy, because at Bama, it's all about
quality, which helped in winning the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award. Benefiting from new product
innovations, Bama is gaining market share, and sales
rates are growing faster than the rate of the restaurant
industry, the center said. And customers keep buying.
Bama's sales per employee rose 9% between 2002 and
2003. Since 2000, sales per employee grew from $175,000
to $205,000, which, the center said, exceeds the 2003
Industry Week benchmark by $40,000.
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY. Today, Ms. Marshall's
granddaughter, Paula Marshall-Chapman, serves as c.e.o.
of the company. Ms. Marshall-Chapman said she learned
at an early age that keeping an eye on quality and a focus
on the people would expand her family's company, maintaining its long-established foundation of success.
In 1984, she became c.e.o., and under her leadership,
Bama has expanded to provide a wide variety of frozen
desserts and baked foods for fast food chains and casual
family dining restaurants. Just recently, after entering a licensing partnership with Table Talk Pies, Worcester, MA,
Bama reintroduced its original pecan pie to the retail
snack market. Table Talk developed the 4-in. pie baring
the Bama Original Pecan Pie brand name and logo.
THE DRIVING FORCE Mike Frihart, Six Sigma black
belt for Bama, said that winning the Baldrige award vali-

ᮡ Winning this Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award confirmed to Bama
officials that the company is on the right track.

dated something that company executives already knew
- Bama is on the right track. Organizations that apply
for the Baldrige Award are evaluated on all aspects of
how they conduct business. Applicants answer more than
220 pointed questions in seven different categories: The
review for the Baldrige Award is thorough and rigorous.
And after being evaluated by Baldrige judges, Bama was
found to be an exemplary company that sets the standard
and outperforms every other applicant in its class.
Bama first applied for the award in 1991 and since
then, Mr. Frihart said, has been making improvements to
work toward a win. "Beginning in 2001, we started applying for the award every year. Partly because Paula put a
goal out that we were going to get good enough to deserve
a Baldrige Award, which meant we had to change, we had
to get better," he said.
Bama did get better. It became one of the best and its
goal, Mr. Frihart said, is to continue along that path so
that, in five years - the Baldrige required wait time after
winning - it can reapply for and win the award for a
second time. "From now on, we will use the criteria for
the award to continue to drive us forward," he said.
Ⅲ

April 2005 / BAKING & SNACK / 35

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