Lexington, KY - NAACO Material Handling Group’s (NMHG) plant in Berea, Ky. has been named “Top Plant” for 2011 by Plant Engineering magazine, an industry publication for plant engineers, managers and maintenance professionals. The Top Plant award recognizes manufacturing facilities in North America that achieve outstanding operational results.
The company, NMHG manufactures forklift trucks with two brand names: Hyster and Yale. The half-million-square-foot plant has operated in Berea since 1973 and has 722 employees. The company increased its workforce by 40 percent last year and launched an extensive training program.
The magazine said NMHG was “an outstanding example of placing your bets in the right place. NMHG bet on its people to help grow the organization.”
“It’s not an award about profits. It’s not about the end product itself. It’s about two things: processes and people,” said Bob Vavra, editor of Plant Engineering during the recent award ceremony. “We found that profit and product follow good people and processes. If you put good people in front of a job and put good processes around them and the opportunity to succeed, they will succeed.”
When they decided to apply for the Top Plant award, NMHG company officials reviewed successes they had experienced in recent years, said Tim White, plant manager.
“We talked about the improvements we had made in quality, through our dealers and in our warranty numbers, and quite a bit about our journey toward lean manufacturing, continuous improvement and training,” White said.
Plant Engineering magazine noted how the extra training provided for plant workers made a difference in operations.
“NACCO did more than just add bodies. Understanding that a flexible workforce would allow the company to grow and change, it placed its bets on extensive training before workers even stepped onto the production floor,” the magazine wrote.
In its award application, the company stressed that increasing overall knowledge of assembly lines and manufacturing areas would boost workers’ depth of knowledge.
Vavra told the audience that his magazine covers American and global manufacturing successes built around the two ideals.
“That’s what we spend time every day writing about and informing people about — how to get better with processes and people,” said Vavra. “Those two have been the hallmarks of past winners.”
In fact, they might have been hallmarks twice before in Kentucky. The magazine has presented its Top Plant award to the Toyota assembly plant in Georgetown and to Schneider Electric in Louisville.
“There is something going on in this state. You want to build on it and grow with it,” added Vavra.
Berea mayor Steve Connelly told the crowd at the award ceremony that about 60 years ago Kentucky’s economy largely consisted of farming and mining and that Berea’s economy then was centered on Berea College. Today, manufacturing generates more than three times as much of our state’s gross domestic product as farming and mining combined, he explained. Berea’s various manufacturing plants now employ 3,000-plus manufacturing workers.
“NACCO plays a pivotal role in this new Kentucky economy, and the Berea plant anchors Berea’s economy. The two are joined at the hip. As you go, so goes Berea,” said Connelly.
NACCO Materials Handling Group has eight plants that make forklift trucks. The Berea plant is the largest. The company holds a No. 3 position in the world market.
“Our goal is to be No. 1 — to be the leading manufacturer in the world,” Colin Wilson, vice president and chief operating officer, told the assembled crowd. “The competition doesn’t stand still. They are always looking to improve. That’s why for us to move ahead, we have to be wedded to the concept of continuous improvement.”
Plant manager White, in paying tribute to the company’s employees, said he was recently in the plant on a Sunday when the lines were idle, the lights off and the scene very quiet.
“I saw the AGVs [automated guided vehicles], the computers, the weld robots and the fork trucks parked, waiting to deliver materials. Despite all the great technology and equipment, what stuck out to me were the people who would be in those stations that make this plant unique,” said an emotional White. “That, to me, is what makes the Berea plant a top plant.”
The magazine also noticed that NMHG has a knack for hiring effectively. It credited co-op programs with Berea College and Eastern Kentucky University for that. The programs give students a chance to see what a career at NMHG would be like.
“I look forward to being arm-in-arm with each of you, facing the challenges of tomorrow and achieving all of those things that we are going to set out to do,” White told NMHG team members.