Many of the judges of the award are from companies that have set high quality standards for themselves.
Therefore, when one examiner said he was 'impressed' with the quality of this year's finalists, it was a quiet tribute.
'Our experience with the competition this year was that it was very competitive. All the companies admitted to the final round had very high quality standards,' Duncan Wong, superior quality service programme manager for Hong Kong and China Gas (Towngas), said.
Mr Wong estimated that he spent 180 hours, or the equivalent of one month, working on the project.
'We had to read the submissions, highlight our queries and prepare an examination report for the participants, giving them an understanding of how well their companies had performed,' said Mr Wong, who was one of four examiners.
'Initially, we had to assess their submissions and each company had to make a presentation after which we had to visit the four companies.
'One of the jobs is to dig a little deeper.
