It’s championship season at IndustryWeek. After many months, our annual search for manufacturing excellence has concluded. We are proud to announce two manufacturing facilities, one located in Pennsylvania and the other in Illinois, as the 2024 IndustryWeek Best Plants Awards competition winners.
Just what does that mean? It means that in an industry where many manufacturers are doing good things—knocking down quality defects, carving out waste, prioritizing safety—these two manufacturing plants are doing those good things and much more, and having greater success.
These facilities’ workforces have taken “good” and stepped it up to “exceptional.” While their methods may vary, their underpinnings are solidly in sync: They embrace teamwork. They forge partnerships with their suppliers and customers. They value training and education. They recognize that continuous improvement doesn’t rest.
And they know excellence is never easy.
Without further ado, IndustryWeek is pleased to announce the 2024 IW Best Plants Award winners, our 34th class of honorees. The winners are:
- HindlePower
Easton, Pennsylvania
Product: stationary battery chargers and battery cabinets - Hoffer Plastics Corp.
South Elgin, Illinois
Product: custom plastic injection molded components
"It's a business cliche to say our people are our greatest resource. Yet in practice, few really tap into the wealth of knowledge, the creative ideas and the desire to make jobs better that most frontline workers have. The two winners of the 2024 IndustryWeek Best Plants award both get what listening to and supporting employees can do to improve operations. As you can read in the coming weeks, Hoffer Plastics and HindlePower focus on employee support not only because it's nice but because it produces a significant return on investment," says Robert Schoenberger, IndustryWeek editor in chief.
IndustryWeek introduced the annual IW Best Plants Awards competition in 1990 to uncover deserving manufacturing operations and their unsung heroes. The manufacturers’ willingness to share their stories, as one editor stated early on, helps to “elevate awareness of what is possible when astute manufacturing managers and motivated employee teams set their minds to working smarter and getting better.”
During the month of September, IndustryWeek will share the individual stories of HindlePower and Hoffer Plastics. You will learn about the people, practices and processes that deliver these manufacturers' extraordinary performances. We know that you will find their success stories both instructional and motivational.
Congratulations to the 2024 IndustryWeek Best Plants Award winners.
About the IW Best Plants Awards
The IndustryWeek Best Plants Awards program annually recognizes manufacturing plants in the United States, Canada and Mexico that are on the leading edge of efforts to increase competitiveness, enhance customer satisfaction, and create stimulating and rewarding work environments.
Each year, winners are invited to participate in the competition, which begins a months-long evaluation and selection process. Plants fill out an in-depth questionnaire that includes a mix of essay and multiple-choice questions, and also are asked to provide a supporting statement that provides additional perspective about the facility. A rigorous review of applications is performed by a panel of IndustryWeek editors, who are aided by independent evaluations from manufacturing experts. The panel looks for evidence of a comprehensive effort to achieve world-class manufacturing capability, including in such areas as leadership, quality, employee involvement, supplier partnerships, technology implementation, production systems, competitiveness and more. The winners must demonstrate improved performance metrics as a result of their efforts.
Selections are not finalized until site visits.
