First Philippine Industrial CorporationFOR First Philippine Industrial Corporation (FPIC), the past 10 years have been a protracted roller coaster ride that saw the company sink to operational and financial lows, at one point even tottering on the edge of closure.

The company was at its peak in 1998, when it earned its highest income of P154 million. But things went downhill almost immediately, with setbacks assailing the now 41- year-old company one after the other.

In 1999, a serious accident happened in its white oil pipeline; in 2001, the City of Manila issued an ordinance wanting to kick out the only petroleum depot served by the white oil pipeline; and entry of new oil industry players and product importation brought about volume decline in both its white oil and black oil pipelines. FPIC quickly formulated a turnaround program for the company. Specifically, its goals were to raise productivity and to sustain this by strengthening its strategy formulation and implementation.

FPIC is now a lean organization of 48 employees who are distributed to 33 positions under 16 divisions in six sites FPIC reaps OML award throughout its 222-kilometer pipeline system. The roles of the employees are further expanded into responsibilities in 12 cross-functional teams.

Among other strategies, FPIC adopted in 2003 the Baldrige criteria as its framework for organizational excellence. Its management system was certified to six international standards, including Investors in People (IiP) Gold Level. It set stretched objectives which are formalized in a Balanced Scorecard that is regularly reviewed. The FPIC Way documents the company’s corporate culture, with organizational excellence and customer focus as main elements; it uses more than 20 metrics covering customer, internal process, and learning and growth, and is integrated in FPIC’s strategic planning and in its values and mission.

Soon enough, the resulting numbers more than validated FPIC’s strategies. Net income rose by an average of 6.7% every year from 2006 to 2009, hitting P211 million in 2009, against the original target of P114M by 2005. Customer satisfaction index continually improved to 4.996 (on a maximum 5.0 scale) in 2009 against the original target of 4.75 by 2005.

In 2007, employee engagement and satisfaction scores topped participating companies from the Asia Pacific region in a Watson Wyatt climate survey, and improved on the earlier survey scores in 2004, even as the company received numerous citations and recognitions for business excellence. It became a finalist in the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines’ 2009 Employer of the Year Award alongside PLDT, HSBC, Toyota Motors and St. Luke’s Medical Center. Also in 2009, it received Asia’s first IiP Gold Award, capping a nineyear commitment to transform the organization.

Without a doubt, FPIC has transformed itself into a highly profitable and competitive enterprise whose processes and value-driven culture have imbedded mechanisms for excellent performance and continuing improvement.

For all these accomplishments, FPIC became this year’s recipient of the ultimate prize—the Oscar M. Lopez Award for Performance Excellence— for demonstrating outstanding level of performance, stable and entrenched culture of excellence and continuous improvement, and for being a national and Lopez Groupwide model.

The FPIC team led by president Galo Garde (holding trophy) receives recognition from Lopez Inc. chair Presy L. Psinakis (front row, second from left), Lopez Holdings chairman Manuel M. Lopez, chairman emeritus Oscar M. Lopez and First Philippine Holdings Corp. chairman Federico R. Lopez