STATE COLLEGE, PA- The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the United States' highest presidential honor for performance excellence through innovation, improvement and visionary leadership. Four of this year's recipients are Minitab customers:

MEDRAD of Warrendale, PA

Nestlé Purina Petcare Co. of St. Louis, MO

Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital of Downers Grove, IL

Montgomery County Public Schools of Rockville, MD

Minitab customers also swept this year's IQPC Process Excellence Awards for North America and Europe. These awards recognize and promote quality improvement projects that demonstrate true best practices and expand and increase the application of Six Sigma globally.

When the European Process Excellence awards, announced in April at IQPC's annual PEX Week Europe, the list of winners was dominated by Minitab customers. Winners included:

Best Project Contributing to Innovation: Scottish Power

Best Lean Transformation: Virgin Media

Best BPM Program: Firstsource Solutions USA LLC

Best BPO Program: Serco Consulting, Serco plc

Best Start Up Process Improvement Program: Kuwait Petroleum International

Best Process Improvement Program: Lloyd's Register IQPC's 2011 Process Excellence Awards for North America were presented during the organization's Lean Six Sigma and Process Improvement Summit in Orlando, FL. in January. Winners included:

Best Project Contributing to Innovation: Capgemini Business Services (India) Ltd.

Best Green Process Improvement Project: LSG Sky Chefs

Best Process Improvement in Service and Transaction Project:

Large corporations: Firstsource Solutions Ltd BFSI

Small to medium corporations: Firstsource Advantage LLC

Best Process Improvement Project Under 90 Days: TCS eServe Ltd.

Best Improvement Program: Anderson Packaging

Best Start-up Program: Singtel

Master Black Belt of the Year: Dr. Anurag Mishra, Firstsource Solutions Ltd.

Community Contribution of the Year: Diane Francisco, Covance