News/Published: October 8, 2020

Ease, Inc. Announces 2020 Champions for Quality Winners

2020 Champions for Quality Winners

MISSION VIEJO, California October 7, 2020 – Ease, Inc., a leading provider in plant floor audits and insights software for manufacturers, has announced its 2020 Champions for Quality Award winners. The Champions for Quality Awards celebrate quality professionals and organizations who have made a significant impact on quality. This year’s awards highlight those who have contributed to quality programs like layered process audits, operational excellence and Lean initiatives, and to those who have gone above and beyond including to accommodate COVID-19 risks.

The 2020 awards consist of a total of 8 award categories. 4 category winners were chosen from public nominations through the Ease Website and a further 4 category winners were selected using audit data from the EASE audits and insights platform.

“This has been a uniquely challenging year for manufacturing, as quality professionals have had to balance their ongoing commitment to quality and continuous improvement with the necessary restrictions of COVID-19.” said Eric Stoop, Ease Inc. CEO. “This year’s nominations included inspiring individual stories and clear examples of company-level manufacturing excellence that we are delighted to be able to celebrate.”

In this the third year of the Champions for Quality Awards, for the first-time, individuals and manufacturing location outside of North America are being recognized. ”Ease is continuing to see rapid adoption of its software and now has customers in more than 40 countries.” commented Gavin Drake, Ease Inc. CMO. “I’m so excited to be able to recognize winners across North America, Europe and Asia for their contribution to quality.”

2020 Champions for Quality Winners
The following are this year’s winners by category:

Ambassador: Ambassadors are known for fostering a culture of quality at their manufacturing plants with layered process audits and other quality initiatives.

Honorable Mentions:
Jennifer Baumgartner – Quality Manager – HBPO Canada Inc.
Germaine Reed – Quality Auditor – Webasto Convertibles USA Inc.

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

Leadership: Leadership nominees are EASE customers who are strong advocates for quality and operations programs with organization-wide benefits.

Trailblazer: These nominees use the EASE software for more than just layered process audits, leveraging this platform for other audit types including safety audits, 5S, and more.

Honorable Mentions:
Maria Butler – Quality Technician – Magna Eagle Bend Manufacturing
Kitti Borocz – Quality System Engineer – Dana Hungary Kft.

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.

  • Winner: Eaton PDSS Changzhou Plant, China  – Eaton Electric Equipment Co., Ltd

Plant Manager: Polo Zhu
Recognized Auditors: Ding Jianfei; Yan Liwen; Xu Minmin; Fei Kewei
Recognized EASE Advocates: Jack Zhu; Chang Aizhen; He Ling

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.

  • Winner: Adam Vesztergom – Engineering Team Leader – Gear Manufacturing – Dana Hungary Kft.

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.

Implementation champion: David Gallois – QA Manager

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: Occasionally we do have winners that for confidentiality reasons are unable to be publicly acknowledged. This is the case for our Quality Transformation winner in 2020, an EASE customer and global automotive manufacturing company that has continued to push the boundaries with continuous improvement across their plants.

About Ease Inc.
EASE is the innovative mobile platform that helps manufacturers simplify how they administer, conduct and respond to plant floor audits. With best-in-class support for layered process audits, safety, 5S and more – EASE drastically reduces labour costs and delivers insights that ensure audit programs drive real business value.

Leading automotive, aerospace and manufacturing organizations around the globe depend on EASE’s enterprise scale, expertise and customer-centricity. EASE is a privately held company based in Mission Viejo, California. To learn more, please visit www.ease.io.

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