Published: January 31, 2008 07:39 pm            

Local plant named best in North America

INDIANAPOLIS — General Cable’s Indianapolis Compounds plant is celebrating this week after being named one of the 10 best manufacturing plants on the continent.

IndustryWeek recently concluded its 18th year of their Best Plants Award Program, and after two years of being a finalist, the Indianapolis plant has finally reached its goal.

“The entire group is very proud,” Buck Wright, plant manager, said. “But without the hourly associates, it would not have been possible.”

General Cable, headquartered in Kentucky, designs and produces copper, aluminum, and fiber optic wire and cable products for various markets. The Indianapolis plant primarily focuses on producing polymer compounds. Each year, IndustryWeek’s staff accepts nominations for plants who may possibly meet the standards of the award.

Jill Jusko, senior editor of IndustryWeek, said the staff looks for manufacturing excellence across a broad array of criteria.

“It’s comprehensive excellence,” Jusko said. “You can’t just have good numbers in one area, but your safety be lousy. These standards are more difficult to meet because we are looking for plants to be good in all areas. And that General Cable plant was.”

Jusko noted that the plant’s consistency, an important component of award criteria, was impressive.

“It’s one thing to get good. It’s another thing to stay good,” Jusko said. “Maintaining a level of performance is very difficult, and they definitely showed an ability to do that.”

General Cable was chosen out of 32 companies, who were actually chosen out of 165 other facilities across North America who were nominated as leaders in their industries. Jusko said that the Indianapolis plant stood out in all areas, and even had a few that were extra exceptional.

“They have an outstanding safety record, and excellent quality,” Jusko said.

In fact, this award isn’t the plant’s only achievement. Last February, the Indy plant was named General Cable’s Best Plant in North America over the company’s 18 other facilities. The staff also received the President’s Award for the lowest incident rate, meaning they had no accidents or incidents of any kind for more than a four-year period.

Lisa Lawson, vice president of General Cable, said the company has 12 manufacturing excellence principles, and that all plants work on areas such as safety, efficiency, quality, etc. She said the award given by General Cable to the plant last year is part of an internal check and balance regarding quality within all of the plants.

“When internally, General Cable says you’re the best, and people on the outside at IndustryWeek say you’re the best, you know that plant is doing a lot of good,” Lawson said.

The staff of the plant is a tight-knit group, Wright said, which attributes to their success.

“There is a very good working relationship that management and the hourly folks have,” Wright said. “We’re a team. The hourly associates made this possible with their input and growth. They’re the ones doing the grunt work out on the floor.”

Wright says the main tools of the plant are six sigma and lean manufacturing. Six sigma is a philosophy of doing business that eliminates defects through a knowledge of the fundamental processes.

“It’s a method to make sure you get to the root cause of problems instead of just putting a band-aid on,” Wright said.

Lean manufacturing is an approach to the industry that reduces waste and streamlines operations.

Wright said much of the staff has grown up together, and the teamwork this fosters provides an efficient working atmosphere.

“Most of us have been together for up to 20 years,” Wright said. “Our turnover is pretty low. We do feel this is a prestigious award. It took a lot of hard work to get there.”





Jamie Hergott writes for the Hendricks County Flyer n Avon, Ind.

        

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