"The Big Leagues"

David Drickhamer

Industry Week

October 2004, pp. 36-70

This article consists of 2 or 3 page descriptions of the winners of the 2004 Industry Week's Best Plants awards. The winners are:

1. Batesville Casket Co., Manchester, TN (steel burial caskets)—This plant has increased its productivity by 22%, and its improvements saved $1.8 million last year
2. Boeing, Macon, GA (military airplane manufacturing)—This plant has increased overall manufacturing efficiency by 54% over the last five years, while reducing the cost of rework and repair by 89%
3. Collins & Aikman Plastics: Williamston Operations, Williamston, MI (automotive headrests, armrests, console covers and other interior components). Among lean methods widely adopted by this plant are value-stream mapping, 5S, kanban, heijunka, visual changeover and total productive maintenance
4. Dana Corp: Perfect Circle Products., Franklin, KY (stainless steel oil ring expanders)—This plant has maintained an average 99% on-time delivery rate to its customers since 2001. Customer complaints and customer reject rates have been zero parts per million recently
5. Dj Orthopedics de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., Tijuana, Mexico (wrist braces, arm slings, back and abdominal supports; rigid knee braces, and other products)—This plant has cut manufacturing cycle time 95% on average during the past three years. Order-to-shipment lead time has been slashed 98% to 24 hours
6. Guidant Puerto Rico, Dorado, Puerto Rico (medical devices, including a variety of pacemaker leads)—This plant reports a seven-fold increase in volume over the last three years, while increasing productivity by 30% or more
7. Maytag Jackson Dishwashing Products, Jackson, TN (dishwashers)—This plant has first pass yields approaching 95%
8. Northrup Grumman Corp., Defensive Systems Division, Rolling Meadows, IL (defense electronic systems)—This plant maintains a 100% repeat business rate
9. Rockwell Automotive Marion Roller Bearing Plant, Marion, NC (mounted roller bearings)—This plant has industry-leading low costs, and it has a first-pass yield of 99.7% for all finished products
10. TRW Automotive, Fowlerville, MI (automotive slip-control units)—This plant has reduced finished goods inventory by 80%, and reduced customer reject rate to 3ppm

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