Batesville Casket Company Named one of 10 Best Manufacturing Facilities in North America

Go Back----Trucking Jobs by State

IndustryWeek Names 2004's 10 Best Manufacturing Facilities in North America.Penton Media's IndustryWeek magazine, the leading publication among senior manufacturing executives, announced today the winners of its 15th annual IW Best Plants Award Program, which salutes 10 outstanding manufacturing facilities on the leading edge of efforts to increase competitiveness, enhance customer satisfaction, and create stimulating and rewarding work environments.

The winners, in alphabetical order, are:

-- Batesville Casket Co. (Manchester, TN)

-- Boeing (Macon, GA)

-- Collins & Aikman Plastics, Williamston Operations (Williamston, MI)

-- Dana Corp., Perfect Circle Products, Franklin Steel Products Plant (Franklin, KY)

-- dj Orthopedics de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (Tijuana, Mexico)

-- Guidant Puerto Rico (Dorado, Puerto Rico)

-- Maytag Jackson Dishwashing Products (Jackson, TN)

-- Northrop Grumman Corp., Defensive Systems Division (Rolling Meadows, IL)

-- Rockwell Automation Marion Roller Bearing Plant (Marion, NC)

-- TRW Automotive Fowlerville Plant (Fowlerville, MI)

The winners report some astounding achievements. For example, the combined 10 facilities recorded a median 21% three-year productivity increase (value added per employee); 20% three-year cycle time reduction (time from start of production to product completion); and 74.9% return on invested capital (ROIC).

"This year's class of winners have raised the bar of excellence in manufacturing today," said Patricia Panchak, IndustryWeek's Editor-in-Chief. "Their winning strategies demonstrate what it takes to achieve world-class performance. IndustryWeek is proud to celebrate the winners' success and share their stories."

IndustryWeek's Best Plants Award Program, which began 15 years ago, is an institution in manufacturing with many companies using the comprehensive entry form as a template to guide their own continuous improvement and benchmarking efforts at facilities throughout their enterprises.

According to Luke Faulstick, Senior Vice President of Operations for dj Orthopedics, a 2004 IW Best Plants winner, dj Orthopedics set out to be a benchmark operation that would be a competitive weapon to keep existing customers, gain new customers and help the company meet its goals and commitments to employees, customers and shareowners.

"IndustryWeek's Best Plants competition was the route we selected based on the breadth of the metrics, the IW Best Plants reputation and the types of companies and organizations regularly participating in the competition," Faulstick explained. "It has been great to win, but the real benefit has been in being able to better meet our customers' needs through the implementation of best practices we have learned through IW's Best Plants competition."

More than 400 plants were nominated between October 2003 and March 2004. The winners were validated during plant visits in July and August. An in-depth profile of all the winning facilities can be found at www.industryweek.com/iwinprint/bestplants.

Go Back----Trucking Jobs by State