Two Baxter Facilities Receive Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence

Two Baxter International Inc. (Deerfield, IL, www.baxter.com) manufacturing facilities will be recognized with the 2007 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. Baxter’s North Cove facility in Marion, NC, and its Cuernavaca facility in the Mexican state of Morelos, are being honored for their achievements in driving higher quality and improvements in productivity, manufacturing cycle time, and customer lead time. The facilities will receive their awards at the Annual Shingo Prize Conference, to be held in Jacksonville, Florida on March 29, 2007.

For nearly 20 years, the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing has honored businesses and researchers who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in manufacturing and the supporting business processes that lead to outstanding quality, cost, delivery, and business results. Named in honor of Dr. Shigeo Shingo, the renowned engineer who helped create the highly regarded Toyota Production System, the annual Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing is administered by the College of Business of Utah State University (Logan, UT, www.usu.edu/cob/).

Since winning the Shingo Prize in 2000, employees at Baxter’s North Cove facility expanded their focus on implementing a lean enterprise beyond just manufacturing operations to ensure integration across the entire value stream. Every day, leaders and team members are challenged to remove waste not just from individual processes or departments, but also within the value streams connecting these processes. Every employee in the facility is a member of a quality improvement team.

Baxter’s Cuernavaca facility has quickly driven improvement in quality and productivity through employee training, development and engagement, and process standardization. Within only two years, the 1,400 employees at the Cuernavaca facility have increased overall productivity by 140% and have achieved nearly a 60% improvement in manufacturing cycle time.