"Living the Good Life"
Industry Week
October 2003, pp. 27-64
This article describes the winners of the 2003 Industry Week Best Plants awards. The winners are:
- Autoliv Steering Wheel/Airbag Facility, Columbia City, IN (automobile steering wheels). This plant has a 100% on-time delivery rate, and has increased its productivity by 173%.
- Boston Scientific, Maple Grove, MN (cardiovascular balloon catheters and coronary stents). This plant has had a 95% improvement in first-pass yield over 5 years, and has reduced costs by 20% for three consecutive years.
- Bridgestone/Firestone South Carolina, Graniteville, SC (light truck and passenger tires). This plant has had a three-year decrease of 74% in raw materials inventory, and a three-year reduction of 72% in scrap/rework as a percentage of sales.
- Collins & Aikman Corp., Guelph, Ontario, Canada (injection molded plastic automobile components and instrument panels). This plant has reduced its defects to 15PPM.
- Dana Corp., Owensboro, KY (light truck frames). This plant has increased productivity by 96%, and has reduced its inventory by 50%.
- Delphi Corp—Delphi Connection Systems' Precision Molding Plant, Cortland, OH (injection molded plastic components for electrical connection systems). This plant won a 2002 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.
- General Cable—Automotive Products, Altoona, PA (ignition wire sets for the automotive aftermarket). This plant has had a 78% reduction in manufacturing cycle time, and a 30% reduction in order-to-ship time.
- Kautex-Textron, Avilla, IN (plastic fuel tank systems). This plant has gone more than 1 million hours without a lost-time injury.
- Kautex-Textron, Lavonia, GA (plastic windshield-washer systems and fuel tanks). This plant has cut customer rejects 99%, and reduced raw material inventory by 86%.
- Lockheed Martin Maritime systems & Sensors, Syracuse, NY (radar systems, sonar and sensor systems). This plant has had a productivity increase of 41%, and a cycle-time reduction of 50%.
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