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2020 Manufacturing Excellence Awards

Photos | Courtesy of CommCan, INC. The owners of CommCan (from left) Marc, Ellen and Jon Rosenfeld

In the following profiles, you will find the traits most shared between the eight WBJ Manufacturing Excellence Award winners for 2020 – who run the gamut of the industry’s numerous subsectors – to be the ability to adapt to changing situations and strong advocacy for their employees and their customers.

Two of the winners this year, Web Industries, Inc. and Swissturn/USA, Inc., are employee-owned companies, as their executives have learned those firms owned by their workers tend to perform better. Beyond giving workers a slice of the pie, a common thread among all the winners is their commitment to the development of their employees, both from professional and personal standpoints. This loyalty translates to their relationships with their customers as well, as the manufacturers help their clients overcome problems and find solutions not readily apparent.

And, of course, in the year 2020 where everyone has changed to new realities multiple times, the Manufacturing Excellence Award winners have found ways to not only survive the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, but to provide new products and services to the particular needs the pandemic is creating.

This year, too, WBJ is introducing a new category to the Manufacturing Excellence Awards, given not to a company – like the other awards – but to an individual who has been a standard bearer for the industry: the Manufacturing Champion Award. In this inaugural year, the award goes to Kathie Mahoney, who helped small and midsize regional manufacturers for two decades at the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership and has now gone on to a similar role in Rhode Island.

These awards, typically given in the spring, were delayed to the fall this year, as WBJ wanted to put on the accompanying Central Mass. Manufacturing Summit as an in-person event and hoped the six-month delay would create enough time for the coronavirus pandemic to get under control. That hasn’t happened, unfortunately, so the summit will be virtual this year. But even without the in-person event, these winners show there is a lot about the industry to be celebrated.

- Brad Kane, editor

WBJ Web Partners

THE MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS FOR 2020

  • Dexter-Russell, Inc.
    Dexter-Russell, Inc.
    Overall Manufacturing Excellence, large company
    View Profile
  • Mercury Wire Products, Inc.
    Mercury Wire Products, Inc.
    Overall Manufacturing Excellence, small company
    View Profile
  • Process Cooling Systems
    Process Cooling Systems
    Green Manufacturing Award
    View Profile
  • The Neles Corp.
    The Neles Corp.
    Collaboration in Manufacturing Award
    View Profile
  • Web Industries, Inc.
    Web Industries, Inc.
    Product Design & Innovation Award
    View Profile
  • CommCan, Inc.
    CommCan, Inc.
    Rising Star
    View Profile
  • Swissturn/USA, Inc.
    Swissturn/USA, Inc.
    Workforce Development Award
    View Profile
  • Kathie Mahoney
    Kathie Mahoney
    Manufacturing Champion Award
    View Profile

Previous years