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Award Winners 2009
Lighting firm crowned Britain’s Best Factory
A global lighting business that designs and produces 4.7 million light fittings a year for over 100 commercial markets around the world has been named Factory of the Year for 2009 at the Best Factory Awards (BFA) run by Cranfield School of Management in partnership with the magazine Works Management and sponsored by Barclays Commercial, DAK Consulting, The National Skills Academy for Manufacturing, Siemens, TBM Consulting and Unite the Union.
The modern purpose-built factory in Spennymoor, Co Durham, also scooped the Best Electronics & Electrical Plant and Best People Management awards and was highly commended for the Innovation award. Thorn Lighting, part of the Zumtobel Group, designs and produces innovative indoor and outdoor lighting for electrical contractors, developers, architects and wholesalers across the world. Previous lighting projects have included Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and Wembley Stadium.
Dr Marek Szwejczewski, Director of the Best Factory Awards said the plant was selected as winner of the prestigious Best Factory Award for a number of reasons:
“Thorn Lighting stood out for its attention to quality, cost and delivery. Its Spennymoor factory is extremely customer
focused and its performance has been so good that it is bringing products back to the UK from overseas plants. The factory has been
designed for fast material flow, which has brought immense saving in terms of time and money. The company also made good use of lean
six sigma tools which involved production workers in the development of improvements which significantly increased the factory’s
productivity and delivery performance.
“The company has invested heavily in its staff’s technical skills and equipment to keep ahead of competition. Employee
multi-skilling is the norm at the factory, with many employees being able to make any product in the range. Half its operators are
on flexible contracts, which allow it to match labour to the peaks in customer demand.
“In a year when manufacturing has borne the brunt of the global recession, Britain’s best factories have remained competitive by keeping quality a strategic priority. All of this year’s winners have been impacted by the recession, in one way or another, but none of them have let it deviate from their goal to achieve operational excellence. In a challenging economy, all of the Best Factory winners have demonstrated that to continuously improve, it is critical to remain focused on the customer.”
Works Management editorial director Ken Hurst said: “You hear all kinds of strong views about where the future of UK manufacturing lies from commentators and politicians who have rarely - if ever - been inside a factory. In my view, the future lies in factories like our Best Factory Award winners; even those running repetitive production lines over long shifts, but where people are empowered to make a difference to their own working lives and the prosperity of the companies they work for. These awards prove that the future well-being of manufacturing and the rebalancing of the UK economy is every bit as much about ordinary people making ordinary things in extraordinary ways, as it is about high value, high tech, knowledge-based businesses.”
Click here for the Best Factory Awards 2009 Winners Brochure
The full list of winners and highly commended plants for 2009:
Factory of the Year
Thorn Lighting Ltd, Spennymoor, Co Durham.
Best Process Plant
JohnsonDiversey UK Ltd, Alfreton- the plant manufactures liquid/powder chemical products for use in cleaning and hygiene applications in commercial, institutional and industrial facilities.
Best Engineering Plant
Gripple Ltd, Sheffield - the plant makes wire joining and tensioning devices for use in agricultural and industrial
applications.
Highly commended: Rexam, Milton Keynes.
Click here to view a video of Gripple Ltd
Click here to view a video of Rexam
Best Electronics and Electrical Plant
Thorn Lighting Ltd, Spennymoor, Co Durham.
Highly commended: Plexus Corp (UK) Limited.
Click here to view a video of Thorn Lighting Ltd
Click here to view a video of Plexus Corp
Best Household and General Products Plant
R. Twinings & Co Ltd, Andover – the plant specialises in the production of speciality teas such as Earl Grey, and also fine teas with fruit or flower flavours.
Best Small Company
Gripple Ltd, Sheffield.
Highly commended: Barfoots of Botley Ltd, Bognor Regis.
Click here to view a video of Gripple Ltd
Click here to view a video of Barfoots of Botley Ltd
People Management Award
Thorn Lighting Ltd, Spennymoor, Co Durham.
Skills Development Award
R. Twinings & Co Ltd, Andover.
Highly commended: Olympus KeyMed, Southend.
Click here to view a video of R. Twinings & Co Ltd
Click here to view a video of Olympus KeyMed
Supply Chain Award
Barfoots of Botley Ltd, Bognor Regis - the plant specialises in the preparation of fresh sweetcorn on the cob for the
UK retail market.
Highly commended: Brose Ltd, Coventry.
Click here to view a video of Barfoots of Botley
Click here to view a video of Brose Ltd
Most Improved Plant
Olympus KeyMed, Southend – the plant manufactures workstations, suction & flushing pumps, insufflators, cleaning and
disinfection equipment for medical endoscopy, rigid endoscopes, light sources and high speed video cameras for industrial and scientific
applications.
Highly commended: Federal-Mogul Friction Products Ltd, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire.
Click here to view a video of Olympus KeyMed
Click here to view a video of Federal-Mogul Friction Products Ltd
Health & Safety Award
Kidde Products Ltd, Seaham – the plant makes fire detection equipment for industrial, marine and commercial
applications.
Highly commended: Gripple Ltd, Sheffield.
Click here to view a video of Kidde Products
Click here to view a video of Gripple Ltd
Innovation Award
Gripple Ltd, Sheffield.
Highly commended: Thorn Lighting Ltd, Spennymoor, Co Durham.
Click here to view a video of Gripple Ltd
Click here to view a video of Thorn Lighting Ltd
Energy & Environment Award
JohnsonDiversey UK Ltd, Alfreton.
Click here to view a video of Johnson Diversey Ltd
The Judges’ Special Award
Plexus Corp (UK) Limited - the plant produces electronic assemblies from printed circuit board assemblies & simple box
build to highly complex finished assemblies – for industrial, medical, defence, and wireless customers.
Highly commended: Carl Zeiss SMT Ltd, Cambridge and Catalent Pharma Solutions, Corby, Northants.
Click here to view a video of Plexus Corp (UK) Limited
Click here to view a video of Carl Zeiss SMT Ltd
Click here to view a video of Catalent Pharma Solutions
The Best Factory Awards celebrate UK manufacturing excellence. All 14 award winners were named at a ceremony at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Hyde Park, London on Friday 18 September.
All plants that enter the Best Factory Awards receive a free benchmarking report to help them measure themselves against their competitors, and to help them improve and innovate.
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