Whirlpool Corp. has been recognized as a winner in the 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards for its outstanding achievement in the categories of Operational Excellence and Enterprise Integration and Technology. This recognition was given for the company’s Project Tracking System, as well as its Global Kaizen Power Pitch project.
The company will be honored at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala, which will take place on June 29 in Marco Island, Fla. The awards are presented by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturing Leadership Council. The NAM is the largest manufacturing association in the U.S., representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector in all 50 states.
“Whirlpool Corporation is proud to have two manufacturing projects, both led by the North American Manufacturing leadership team, recognized by the MLC as 2022 award recipients,” said Don Metzelaar, vice president of integrated supply chain and quality. “These projects enable us to flawlessly execute complex projects across our manufacturing network and enhance our culture of continuous improvement so that we can deliver best-in-class operational excellence.”
The Project Tracking System provides visibility to all current and future projects across 14 manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Mexico. This system integrates project leaders’ knowledge and workload to assign the appropriate leader to each project and also manages project timing and the root cause of delays. This solution provides one source of connected project management across all of Whirlpool’s North American manufacturing plants.
The Global Kaizen Power Pitch is a competition that took place between May 2021 and Jan. 2022, aimed at recognizing plants for delivering manufacturing excellence and motivating employees to deliver products with a deeper understanding and application of manufacturing excellence methodology.
During the competition, there were 85 Kaizen “battles” with 151 Kaizen’s (process improvements) presented to various cross-functional judging committees. A total of 618 project team members took part, with 197 committee members. Manufacturing practices put in place as a result of the competition resulted in millions of dollars in savings at the plants.
“Both of these projects were incredibly important to our manufacturing team and the improvement of our processes in the North American Region, as well as across the globe,” explained Ramsey Aljahmi, senior director of NAR operations excellence. “The Project Tracking System generates significant savings while ensuring seamless delivery of capacity, quality and cost projects across the network. The Global Kaizen Power Pitch completely transformed our ability to share best practices and solutions across all of our global manufacturing plants. Kudos to everyone on our manufacturing team who worked so hard to achieve this recognition from the MLC.”
