A welcome from Peter Hobday, the host for the 2008 ceremony: top

Peter Hobday introduces the Strategic Manufacturing Awards

"In a climate where uncertainty reigns across the European manufacturing base, it is increasingly important that businesses demonstrate creative ways of optimising manufacturing capacity and performance, in order to stay ahead of the competition. To this end, I believe it is fantastic that we can feature and showcase the success of leading enterprises from across the globe.

I therefore look forward to welcoming you in Düsseldorf, for what will be a grand and rewarding evening for the manufacturing community"

Manufacturing IT Award, sponsored bytop

Chris Molamphy receives the Manufacturing IT prize on behalf of Diageo from Jordi Andreu, President EMEA at Rockwell Automation

With ASCAMM, Epicor for their partnership with Texecom, Diageo and Wipro contesting the award, the judging panel were looking for unrivalled progress and success in designing and executing an IT infrastructure covering the manufacturer’s multiple processes and disciplines, resulting in evident ROI. For their success of Project DANTE, where the MES system was re-engineered to play a vital role in minimising onsite waste by 40%, driving down utility costs by nearly €2million and bringing raw material costs €1.35million ahead of budget, the winning entry was Diageo.

Chris Molamphy, C.I Process team leader at Diageo commented "To be shortlisted for the award for Manufacturing IT is, in itself, ample recognition that you are on our way to achieving Manufacturing Excellence. To then be judged the winner in this very competitive category, and recognised by your peers as delivering real value to the business through the use of IT is an honour and an unexpected accolade we were delighted to receive on the night"

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Innovation Award sponsored bytop

Hugo Martinez de Lahidalga of Fatronik receives his award from Microsoft’s Francois Richard

The judging panel were looking for evidence of how business maintained their competitive advantage by sustaining considerable rates of innovation, whilst remaining responsive to market demands. SAP, ASCAMM, Donaldson Torit and Fatronik were deemed to be have the strongest entries and for their work on the Portable Robot project for Airbus where they developed a completely new concept of flexible and portable lightweight robots for drilling aeronautical parts, in turn reducing process time by 33%, Fatronik collected the prize.

Hugo Martinez de Lahidalga , Projects and Markets Manager stated "We are very proud of searching this award with some of the most powerful case studies in manufacturing in 2008. Our award in the innovation category, for Roptalmu, is very relevant because is a robot that puts into practice the thirdative sixth of FATRONIK-Tecnalia, in terms of both the integration of technologies and of a cooperative model. Our robot. developed for the aeronautical company Airbus España, has been declared the winner out of more than 100 companies from all over the world, which is a source of satisfaction for us".

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Green Manufacturing Award, sponsored bytop

Jordi Portella, EMEA Manufacturing Solutions Director presents Joseba Pérez Bilbatua, International R&D Projects Director at Ideko S.Coop with the Green Manufacturing Award.

As the green agenda becomes ever more prevalent for all manufacturing organisations, Ideko S.Coop, Piramal Healthcare, Curvaceous Software and Microsoft matched the strict criteria of being able to demonstrate maximising energy efficiency levels, compliance with environmental regulations and minimising waste from the production process to cut the all important carbon footprint. For their design and development of a brand new hollow cutting tool to develop a clean and safe machining system, in turn maximising recycling capacity and reusability, Ideko S.Coop were the deserved winners.

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Operational Excellence Award, sponsored bytop

Bendt J. Jørgensen, Vice President of Danfoss Business Systems is congratulated by Anne Fitzsimmons, Senior Vice President for Global Manufacturing Markets at Atos Origin.

Enterprises in this category were required to successfully illustrate how they delivered continuous improvement using techniques including lean and six sigma. Premier Foods / Idhammar, Danfoss, Baxter and Bombardier demonstrated that the minimisation of waste was at the top of their agenda but of course, there can only be one winner. For developing a business system focused on improved performance and practice, which has brought significant increases in productivity and capacity of over 30%, the winners were Danfoss.

Mark Graban, a member of this year’s judging panel explains why Danfoss won the award: "I am impressed with how Danfoss has implemented Lean in its manufacturing operations as part of a complete 'business system' rather than just a 'production system' for the shop floor. It struck me that Danfoss started back in 2004 with some pressing business needs. Lean success comes not from implementing Lean methods, but rather from using Lean to meet business improvement goals, and it appears that Danfoss has had that proper focus. Their results of improving productivity and capacity by more than 30 per cent are impressive."

Bendt J. Jørgensen, Vice President of Danfoss Business Systems, on receiving their accolade stated: “Over the past four to five years, we have aimed to set up a shared business system across Danfoss to improve the company’s profitable growth rates and make us even more competitive. We have come far and all of the employees that have been involved have made a huge effort to make this happen. Winning this Operational Excellence Award is a clear recognition of this effort of which we are very proud. We will make positive use of it in our future work to create more continuous improvements."

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Skills in Manufacturing Awardtop

Bob Cervi, Managing Editor of Engineering and Technology Magazine congratulates representatives from the PA consulting manufacturing practice, including David Bailey, on winning the skills category in conjunction with Inalfa Roof Systems.

The judging panel was looking for evidence of maximised productivity levels through thirdative recruitment techniques, training and cultivation of the workforce as it is them that drive the success of the modern manufacturing enterprise. Hewlett Packard GMBH, PA Consulting and Poona Automation were the front runners in this category with Malcolm Wheatley revealing that PA Consulting in conjunction with their client Inalfa Roof Systems were this year’s victors:

"PA Consulting, in conjunction with Inalfa Roof Systems, has demonstrated a genuine ability to link workforce performance to productivity. Delivering a 0.5% greater EBIT margin is testament to this. Well done to everyone at PA and Inalfa for their success".

Receiving the prize, David Bailey, senior member of PA’s manufacturing practice, commented:

"Without PA, Inalfa would have struggled to achieve these results so quickly. PA reconciled our objectives – including immediate profitability and long term product quality, and then coached us to this performance. We quickly realised we were facing reorganisation on an enormous scale, together with huge cultural change, but with PA to help us we decided to push on – and the financial results have confirmed this was the right decision"

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Demand Driven Manufacturer of the Year Awardtop

Paul Phillips, Director of Autoglym celebrates receiving his prize from Pierfrancesco Manenti, Research Director for EMEA, IDC Manufacturing Insights.

The ability to demonstrate Just-In-Time (JIT) principles across the supply chain to manage short lead times and meet customer demand were essential criteria for the judging panel as well as implementing a demand driven doctrine in their company culture. Autoglym, Procter & Gamble and MTI Whirlpools put forward strong entries, but, for their ability to incorporate a new style of demand driven manufacturing, in turn maintaining their competitive advantage, maximising customer service levels and increasing productivity by 50%, Autoglym scored the highest marks.

Paul Phillips Director of Autoglym added: "We are very pleased and with our win and privileged to be at the ceremony in the company of so many established manufacturing organisations"

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Manufacturer of the Year Award, sponsored by the WTG Manufacturing Alumnitop

Representatives from Ideko S.Coop including Joseba Pérez Bilbatua, their International R&D Projects Director, receives the Manufacturer of the Year award from Tom Boughton of the WTG Manufacturing Alumni

The award is quite simply, "the winner of winners" as it represents the pinnacle of manufacturing excellence and acknowledges the achievements of a single enterprise in taking their business to the next level in competitive manufacturing. All entries that were shortlisted throughout the evening were put forward for this final prize, meaning one company were going to walk away with two trophies. Tom Boughton, WTG Manufacturing Alumni Project Director had the honour of presenting Ideko S.Coop with this esteemed prize.

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Special mention – Bombardier Transportationtop

Pierfrancesco Manenti presents the special mention prize to Oliver Dohn from Bombardier Transportation

As there were a very high level of entries this year, the evening didn’t finish the without making special mention of all the entries for this year’s ceremony and one particular entry received special recognition. For their work in operational excellence, where they successfully integrated precious lean, six sigma and world class manufacturing initiatives to ensure speed at shop floor level, Bombardier Transportation received a bottle of champagne.

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