Uponor has been named 2013 Manufacturer of the Year in the large-company category by the Manufacturers Alliance, a U.S. association providing peer-to-peer training, education and resources that allow Midwest manufacturing companies to continuously grow, improve and stay competitive. “We are honored to receive this recognition and award and are privileged to be part of the Manufacturers Alliance where we not only share our best practices, but where we also learn from others,” said Uponor North America president Bill Gray. Last year was the first year Uponor was nominated and came in as runner-up. The Manufacturers Alliance chose Uponor due to several lean and operational efficiencies the company had experienced in the past year, including:
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Improving Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) by 7.8 per cent
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Decreasing Non-value Added (NVA) by 19 per cent
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Decreasing scrap rate by nine per cent
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Decreasing Variable Production Cost (VPC) by 6.3 per cent
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Improving lacquer lines changeover from three and a half hours to 10 minutes
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Improving pipe recoil changeover from 45 minutes to two minutes
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Best year for reducing severity and frequency of accidents
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Sharing lean processes with office personnel, resulting in a new product catalog lean process that reduced production costs by 21 per cent and production time from 207 days to 30 days
In July 2012, Uponor one of two companies on the Manufacturers Alliance Tour of Excellence, where it showcased its outstanding accomplishments in operational improvements. Topics included tier management, Continuous Improvement (CI) boards, A3 projects, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Manufacturing Execution System (MES).
