Champions for Quality Awards

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.

Winners

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.

Winners

Alexis Cuiriz – ABC Technologies San Juan Plant

San Juan del Rio, Mexico

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.

Winners

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.

Winners

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 mitigations 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 mitigations.

Winners

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. The EASE platform includes a gamification system that awards 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, the number of audits completed and audit findings with the majority of their audits being focused on quality audits such as layered process audits.

Winners

Patrick Gant, Magna Cosma LMV Automotive

Liberty Plant

Kalin Randolph, Magna Cosma LMV Automotive

Liberty Plant

Honorable mention

William Specht, PGT Innovations

North Venice Plant

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Best Implementation

The Ease Customer Success Team implements EASE at hundreds of plants every year. The winner was 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.

Winners

Dana Incorporated – Brazil Plants (Enice Oliveira)

Brazil

Honorable Mentions

ElringKlinger, Brazil Plant (Raul Ferreira)

Brazil

Germany Plants, Camaco Amvian (Andrea Willkofer)

Germany

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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.

Winners

IAC Group