INDUSTRYWEEK’S Best Plants Award Program, which started 21 years ago, is an annual salute to outstanding manufacturing facilities that are on the leading-edge of efforts to increase competitiveness, enhance customer satisfaction, and create stimulating and rewarding work environments.

"INDUSTRYWEEK’S annual Best Plants competition evaluates manufacturing facilities in multiple categories, recognizing that operational excellence is not delivering good quality at the expense of on-time delivery,” stated INDUSTRYWEEK’s Editor, Jill Jusko, in the publication’s January issue. “Neither is it meeting productivity goals at the expense of worker safety or by working harder but not smarter. It is a comprehensive focus on excellence in all areas, with an unstoppable focus on improvements that will further increase competitiveness and enhance customer satisfaction.”

General Cable’s Franklin plant will receive a commemorative award during ceremonies scheduled on January 26, 2011. This honor recognizes the plant’s world-class manufacturing capabilities and its commitment to continuous improvement.

Competing plants reported management practices and plant performance in categories such as quality, customer and supplier relations, employee involvement, application of new technologies, productivity, cost reductions, manufacturing flexibility and responsiveness, inventory management, environmental and safety performance, new product development and overall market results. The top 10 selected winners demonstrated the rewards that are credited to manufacturers who strive for perfection and never ease up on their efforts to improve.

“General Cable is once again pleased to receive this award from INDUSTRYWEEK in recognition of our manufacturing excellence,” said Greg Lampert, President and Chief Executive Officer of General Cable North America. “We use the INDUSTRYWEEK competition as a benchmark for comparing our manufacturing performance against the best in the world. I would like to commend Mark Thackeray, General Cable’s Senior Vice President of North American Operations, Jim Clark, Franklin’s Plant Manager, and their respective teams, for setting demanding goals and providing the tools and training for our associates to achieve them.”

“Lean Manufacturing, combined with Six Sigma quality improvement tools, continues to drive major improvements in all our manufacturing operations,” added Mark Thackeray, Senior Vice President, North American Operations. “Our strategy to achieve manufacturing excellence has made General Cable a much stronger company today. Lean thinking is part of our culture of continuous improvement, along with the engagement and contribution of our associates—something we call ‘OLPC’ or Operator-Led Process Control. The Franklin plant is operating very close to our ideal vision of OLPC.”

“Since 2001, General Cable has had nine plants selected as finalists in IndustryWeek’s Best Plants competition. Seven of those plants have gone on to achieve the title of one of the Top 10 Plants in North America,” continued Thackeray. “They are Altoona, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in 2003 and 2009; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2005; Tetla, Tlaxcala, Mexico, in 2006; Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A., in 2007; Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S.A., in 2008, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, in 2009, and now, Franklin, Massachusetts, U.S.A. in 2010. This achievement recognizes our Company’s world-class manufacturing capabilities, as well as the mindset of continuous improvement shared by all General Cable associates worldwide.”

Our associates’ focus on manufacturing quality products, coupled with outstanding on-time delivery, gives our customers the confidence to partner with us to serve their product needs,” said Jim Clark, Franklin’s Plant Manager. "This award recognizes the hard work and dedication of all the associates in Franklin who have changed this facility around with a focus on continuous improvement. We are very proud of our accomplishments and to be recognized with this prestigious INDUSTRYWEEK Best Plants Award."

Source: General Cable