Penton's IndustryWeek Names Best Manufacturing Facilities in North America

CLEVELAND, Jan. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- IndustryWeek, the leading business information source for executives and operations leaders in the manufacturing industry, has announced the winners of its 23rd annual IW "Best Plants Awards".

This annual program salutes outstanding North American manufacturing facilities on the leading edge of efforts to increase competitiveness, enhance customer satisfaction, and create stimulating and rewarding work environments.

The 2012 IndustryWeek Best Plants, profiled in the January issue, are (in alphabetical order):

• CNH Wichita Product Center (Wichita, Kansas)
• Ethicon LLC (San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico)
• Harris Products Group, a Lincoln Electric Co. (Mason, Ohio)
• La-Z-Boy Tennessee (Dayton, Tenn.)
• Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Pike County Operations (Troy, Ala.)
• Warren Rupp Inc. (Mansfield, Ohio)

"This year's Best Plants winners truly set high expectations. They demonstrated that operational excellence continues to prosper in manufacturing — and manufacturers continue to strive for even greater performance," said Patricia Panchak, IndustryWeek's editor-in-chief. "IndustryWeek salutes the achievements of the 2012 IW Best Plants, and is proud to share their success stories."

The IndustryWeek Best Plants Awards program, which began more than two decades ago, is itself an institution in manufacturing. In fact, many manufacturing companies using the entry form as a template to guide their own continuous improvement and benchmarking efforts at facilities throughout their enterprises.

Entrants are evaluated on a comprehensive set of criteria that includes: management practices, level of employee involvement, safety, manufacturing plant-floor operations, customer and supplier relations, as well as quantifiable performance indicators and evidence of competitiveness.

The 2012 winners will be honored during an awards ceremony at the 2013 IndustryWeek Best Plants conference (www.iwbestplants.com), where they also will share their stories of operational excellence and continuous improvement. The conference is April 22-24 in Greenville, SC.

Profiles of the winning facilities can be found online at www.industryweek.com/best-plants-2012. Follow news about the winners and conference on Twitter at @IWBestPlants, #IWBestPlants.

About IndustryWeek
IndustryWeek brings together manufacturing business leaders to explore the issues, strategies, trends and technologies that help them build more competitive and profitable companies. IndustryWeek is a business unit of Penton Media, Inc. For more information, please visit www.industryweek.com, follow us on Twitter @IndustryWeek and Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/IndustryWeek/91310488418.

About Penton Media, Inc.
For millions of business owners and decision-makers, Penton makes the difference every day. We engage our professional users by providing actionable ideas and insights, data and workflow tools, community and networking, both in person and virtually, all with deep relevance to their specific industries. We then activate this engagement by connecting users with tens of thousands of targeted providers of products and services to help drive business growth. Learn more about our company at www.penton.com.

Penton is a privately held company owned by MidOcean Partners and U.S. Equity Partners II, an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP.

CONTACTS:
Patricia Panchak
Editor-in-Chief
IndustryWeek
(216) 931-9252
[email protected]

Chris Meyer
Director, Corporate Communications
(212) 204-4259
[email protected]

SOURCE Penton Media