Logistics in Wallonia awarded the Bronze European Excellence label
Within the process of labelling poles and clusters in Europe, Logistics in Wallonia has just won the Bronze label. This recognition constitutes a first stage for the competitiveness pole. The audit report identifies an outstanding potential for achieving excellent management in its mission to create a network of all of the economic, scientific, technological and human skills within the transport and logistics sector.
Management forming part of continuous improvement
For many years, Logistics in Wallonia has made it a point of honour to offer a quality service, by showing itself to be attentive to the needs of players within the sector and to the recommendations of its network of expertise, emanating both from the industrial world and from the R&D sector.
Remaining true to its strategy, the pole has embarked on an international benchmarking strategy carried out by the ESCA (European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis), an organism mandated by the European Commission. Following several weeks of evaluation, the ESCA has recognised, via this label, the excellent work of the pole.
Based on a comparison with a range of first rate international clusters, the report on Logistics in Wallonia contains excellent data which will enable the pole to set up measures leading to optimisation of its activities, directly allied to the competitiveness of Walloon enterprises.
From the Bronze to the Gold label
The evaluation report proves to be particularly positive for the Walloon pole which already meets the principal criteria necessary for obtaining the highest label: Gold. In light of this observation, Logistics in Wallonia is, as from today, concentrating on putting into operation the recommendations relating to it issued by the European Commission.
A quality label at a European level for the clusters
This labelling approach has emerged from the ‘European Cluster Excellence Initiative’ (ECEI), a project co-financed by the Enterprise and Industry DG of the European Commission. This aims to develop methodologies and tools specifically dedicated to poles and clusters in order, on the one hand, to support the setting up of clusters, and on the other to improve their capacities in terms of group and network management.
It is within this context that the partners, all of whom are recognised in cluster management, have established a uniform set of quality management indicators for the clusters, along with a system of quality labelling which will now constitute a reference accepted and recognised for professional groupings across the whole of Europe.
Contact:
Bernard Piette
Director, Logistics in Wallonia
Tel: +32 (0)4 225 50 60
E-mail: bpi@logisticsinwallonia.be