Our Values – Excellence
We constantly strive to be excellent in all that we do.
Commitment to Excellence
As part of our commitment to excellence and to continuously increase our value offering to our customers and employees, we have a dedicated organization focused on driving efficiencies throughout our organization, embedding best practices and sustaining a culture of innovation. Our management operating system incorporates lean and six sigma methodologies to constantly identify and eliminate barriers to performance excellence and empower our employees to provide the best in class service to our customers.
Master Technicians
Maintenance technicians are a critical part of our school bus mission of getting children to school safely, on time and ready to learn® and out transit/paratransit/shuttle mission of providing the safest, highest quality transportation services on time, every time. Providing safe transportation starts with putting safe vehicles on the road. To foster excellence in its maintenance operations, we support our maintenance professionals who work to achieve master technician certification by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), an independent, non-profit organization that works to improve the quality of vehicle repair and service by testing and certifying repair and service professionals.
ASE Master Certification
Our maintenance personnel are encouraged to participate in the automotive service excellence (ASE) certification program for school bus technicians. ASE is a broad-based program, testing general areas for school bus technician skills. The certification is tailored to specific tasks the technician must perform every day at the customer service center. We reimburse tuition for the ASE certification exam and award up to a $500 recognition award to employees who achieve certification. We have also instituted a program to award annual bonus to our master certified technicians that are continuously employed by us.
Technicians earn classifications based on education, experience, and possession of hand tools, as well as successfully passing ASE and our internal tests. Our technician classification system has three designations:
- Class I technician
- Class II technician
- Class III technician
Illinois Performance Excellence Center (ILPEX) for Commitment to Excellence
2016 and 2015 Bronze Awards
National Express LLC was selected for this award based on our demonstrated commitment to excellence and our pursuit of continuous improvement. This recognition 
is especially meaningful as organizations can take many years to achieve this honor. In the beginning of November 2015, a team of assessors spent an entire week in our corporate headquarters in Warrenville and also visited our Aurora, Lake Villa and Carpentersville customer service centers, speaking to over 100 team members. During the visit, the assessing team dug into the details of our business and assessed the extent to which we demonstrate excellence; our business was assessed using the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for excellence.
The ILPEx assessment was a review of our organization’s continuous improvement efforts. This recognition not only confirms our improvement from 2011 to 2016 but validates the journey to excellence that we continue to travel.
Community
Our policies and practices will advance the social, environmental and economic conditions in the communities where we operate.
People
We develop the talents, reward the exceptional performance and respect the rights of all our employees.
