City Technology is crowned Britain's best factory
29/09/2014 Cranfield University
City Technology, the world's leading provider of life saving gas sensing solutions,has been crowned Britain's best factory at the 2014 Best Factory Awards (BFA) held today (26 September) in London.The awards ceremony, hosted by Cranfield School of Management in partnership with Works Management magazine, brought together some of the UK's leading manufacturers to celebrate British manufacturing at its best. As well as winning the accolade of Factory of the Year, City Technology also picked up two further awards: Best Electronics and Electrical Plant and The Innovation Award.
Now in their 23rd year, the awards recognise and honour those UK manufacturers who are leading the way when it comes to continuous improvement and delivering superior results for their customers. Marek Szwejczewski, Director of the Best Factory Awards and Professor of Operations Strategy at Cranfield, said: "The manufacturing sector in the UK has had to change radically to remain globally competitive. Contrary to common belief, UK manufacturing is strong with the UK currently the 11th largest manufacturing nation in the world. All of our winners have demonstrated the ability to rapidly adapt their physical and intellectual infrastructures to exploit changes in technology, as manufacturing becomes more responsive to changing global markets and closer to customers."
Works Management editor Max Gosney said: "Our 13 finalists display an extraordinary passion and pride in delivering a range of world-beating products made in the UK. But passion alone isn't enough to carry a site to world-class status. Our winners demonstrate an outstanding talent for bringing the best out of their people. They've discovered the secret of transforming top-level business objectives into something tangible that ordinary workers can identify with. Working together with their engaged and empowered employees, factories are harvesting a rich crop of innovative new ideas on how to build it faster, smarter, better and cheaper."
The winners and highly commended plants for 2014 are as follows:
Factory of the Year: City Technology Ltd, Portsmouth.
Best Process Plant Award: Alcoa Manufacturing GB, Birmingham - Produces aluminium alloy plates for use in aerospace, defence and general engineering markets.
Best Engineering Plant Award: Bosch Thermotechnology Ltd, Worcester - Manufactures high efficiency heating and hot water appliances.
Best Electronics and Electrical Plant Award: City Technology Ltd
Best Household and General Products Plant Award: Coca Cola Enterprises Ltd, Sidcup - Soft drink manufacturer.
Highly Commended: LINPAC Packaging, St Helens - Produces packaging for the food service industry.
Best SME Award: Interflex Scotland Ltd, Sunderland - The plant manufactures flexible packaging for the food and healthcare industries.
People Management and Development Award: MSD Ltd, Cramlington - Makes solid dose pharmaceutical products for global markets.
Highly Commended: Alcoa Manufacturing GB.
Supply Chain Award: Bosch Thermotechnology Ltd.
Highly Commended: Cummins Power Generation Ltd, Manston, Ramsgate - Constructs diesel and gas powered generators for primary and secondary standby power.
Most Improved Plant Award: LINPAC Packaging, St Helens.
Health & Safety Award: 3M UK Plc, Newton Aycliffe - Manufactures a range of disposable and reusable respirators.
Export Award: Cummins Power Generation Ltd.
Innovation Award: City Technology Ltd, Portsmouth.
Highly Commended:Interflex Scotland Ltd, Sunderland.
Energy & Environment Award: Bosch Thermotechnology
Highly Commended: Eaton Production International GmbH, Industrial Control Division, Worksop - Manufactures switch disconnectors and cam switches.
The Judges' Special Award: Brita Water Filter Systems Ltd, Bicester - Produces water filter cartridges.
Highly Commended: Autoglym, Letchworth, Hertfordshire - The plant produces products used in the cleaning and polishing of automotive vehicles.
Prism Electronics, St Ives, Cambridgeshire - Offers a wide range of electronics manufacturing services with full engineering support.
The award winners were named at a prestigious ceremony held at 8 Northumberland Avenue, London. All entrants received a free benchmarking report on their plants' performance.
For more information, please contact:
Cranfield School of Management
Tel: +44 1234 754425 or
Email: sommediarelations@cranfield.ac.uk
Web: www.cranfield.ac.uk
Print this articleShare article:
Process and Control Today are not responsible for the content of submitted or externally produced articles and images. Click here to email us about any errors or omissions contained within this article.