2022 Champions for Quality Awards Winners

The 5th annual Champions for Quality Awards feature public award nominations from manufacturers around the world as well as insight-driven awards from the EASE plant floor audit platform. The awards recognize individuals, specific manufacturing facilities, and entire organizations across a range of categories. Congratulations to our 2022 winners for your ongoing commitment to manufacturing quality!

Public Nominated Awards

The following award winners and honorable mentions were all nominated by the pubic and selected by a panel of Ease employees based on the stories and information provided.

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Leadership

Leadership nominees are strong advocates for quality and operations programs with organization-wide benefits. Congratulations to our Leadership Award recipients.

Winner: Tyler Ochs – Allegion (Indiana, USA)

Honorable Mentions:
Margaret Fairbairn, Magna Exteriors (Ontario, Canada)
Will Baucom, Intech Medical (Alabama, USA)

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Ambassador

Ambassadors are known for fostering a culture of quality at their manufacturing plants with layered process audits and other quality initiatives. This year, two nominees rose above an incredibly competitive field and were selected as co-winners of our Ambassador Award.

Winner: Alexis Cuiriz – ABC Technologies San Juan Plant (San Juan del Rio, Mexico)

Winner: Timothy Graham – Danfoss Power Solutions (Tennessee, USA)

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Trailblazer

Trailblazers earn recognition for using the EASE plant floor audit software for more than just layered process audits, leveraging the platform for other audit types including safety audits, 5S, and more.

Winner: Rick Migliacio, AeroTEC (Washington, USA)

Honorable Mentions:
Jiri Urban, Marmon Foodservice Technologies (Brno-Turany, Czech Republic)
Todd Perry, Graham Packaging (Kentucky, USA)
Matt Davis, Morgan Olson (Michigan, USA)

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Influencer

Influencers have dedicated their careers to training leaders and influencing quality on a global scale.

Winner: Matt Kunesh, Brembo North America Inc. (Michigan, USA)

Honorable Mentions:
Christopher Harden, Eaton Aerospace (Portsmouth, UK)
Jesus Gomez, Pace Industries, LLC (Saltillo, Mexico)

Categories Based on EASE Data

The following category winners and honorable mentions were determined using insights data from the EASE plant floor audit platform, recognizing individuals, specific manufacturing facilities and entire organizations for their commitment to quality excellence!

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Plant of the Year

The Winner of this award was required to be conducting a minimum of 2,500 plant floor audits per year and creating at least 500 findings in the same period. To choose the winner the Ease team looked at a combination of weighted audit insights including the percentage of on-time completed plant floor audits and on-time completed findings.

Winner: Samsung BioLogics, Incheon Plant (South Korea)

Honorable Mentions:
Zeus Industrial Products, Letterkenny Plant (Ireland)
Magna Cosma Presstran, St. Thomas Plant (Canada)

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Auditor of the Year

A plant floor auditor is not a dedicated position within a manufacturing plant, but a role carried out by employees across the plant – including those that may not be part of quality or operations. To keep auditors engaged, EASE awards achievement badges to auditors based on performance. The winner of this category was required to already hold an EASE Guru badge and was chosen based on audit completion rate, total number of audits completed, and audit findings with the majority of their audits being focused on quality audits such as layered process audits.

Winner: Patrick Gant, Magna Cosma LMV Automotive (Liberty Plant)

Winner: Kalin Randolph, Magna Cosma LMV Automotive (Liberty Plant)

Honorable mention:
William Specht, PGT Innovations (North Venice Plant)

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Best Implementation

Our Customer Success Team implements EASE at hundreds of plants every year. The honorees in this category were chosen based on their engagement throughout the implementation from pilot to final deployment, their advocacy throughout the process, as well as the team’s audit activity and completion rates in the weeks and months following the go-live.

Winner: Dana Incorporated – Brazil Plants

Implementation Champion:
Enice Oliveira, Quality Systems Coordinator

Honorable Mentions
Brazil Plant, ElringKlinger - Implementation Champion: Raul Ferreira
Germany Plants, Camaco Amvian - Implementation Champion: Andrea Willkofer

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Quality Transformation

The winner of this award is the manufacturer that has demonstrated the most significant improvement in performance within the EASE platform over a 12-month period across all of their facilities. During this period the winner had to meet a number of minimum benchmark data points as well as have the highest percentage increase in on-time audits and mitigations.

Winner: IAC Group