SCOTSMAN NAMED BEST PLANT BY INDUSTRYWEEK

VERNON HILLS, Ill.—Scotsman Ice Systems’ Fairfax, South Carolina, operation has been named one of the ten Best Plants in North America by IndustryWeek.  The awards program has been recognizing top manufacturers for the past 17 years, with a panel of judges scoring the nominees in the areas of competitive edge, customer satisfaction, and employee retention and workplace environment.  The Fairfax plant employs 290 people and produces commercial ice-making units and luxury consumer ice machines for Scotsman, a global leader in advanced-technology ice systems.

“We’re extremely proud of our Fairfax facility, its leadership and the people who make our customers happy every day,” says Randy Rossi, president of the North American Ice Group for Enodis, Scotsman’s parent company.  “This is one of the most prestigious awards in manufacturing and is testament to our commitment to excellence, not only in Fairfax, but in every Scotsman facility nationwide.  It was an honor to be a finalist twice in the past five years, but even sweeter to win.  This represents a victory for our customers, the ones for whom these innovations and quality-control systems were designed.”

Best Plant winners for 2006 are best-in-class examples of manufacturing excellence.  The ten winning companies combined have reduced manufacturing cycle times a median of 26 percent over the past three years.  Order-to-shipment lead times declined a median 24 percent and on-time delivery approached 99 percent for the same time period. 

Specific plant achievements contributing to Scotsman’s win were reducing scrap by 46 percent since 2000, improving first-pass yield by 53 percent since 1999 and improving productivity by 41 percent since 2001.  According to IndustryWeek, the Fairfax facility has a plethora of processes in place to reduce waste and increase output.  The magazine also credits the plant’s leadership and constant evaluation and improvement of process and products for achieving Best Plant recognition.  The full story is available at http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=12682&SectionID=4

Criteria used by IndustryWeek to qualify Best Plants includes quality performance, on-time delivery, productivity improvements and profitability, management tools and strategies that include customer-focused organizational structures, empowered work teams, shrewd application of new technology, implementation of lean manufacturing concepts and other approaches that lay the groundwork for continuous improvement. 

Scotsman Ice Systems, an Enodis company, is a full-line manufacturer of ice systems offering a wide variety of ice forms, machine sizes (more than 100 different models), storage bin sizes, icemaker dispensers and ice-only dispensers—including the new Prodigy^TM cuber, one of the most technologically advanced, energy-efficient machines on the market today.  Just launched in late 2006, Prodigy is already garnering industry accolades.  It is the recipient of the Best New Equipment Award at the Western Food Expo in Los Angeles and a top 10 finalist for most innovative product from the Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI).  Scotsman’s Fairfax facility is another multi-award winner, recognized earlier this year by the College of Business at Utah State University as a 2006 Shingo Prize finalist.  For more information on the smartest choice in ice, visit www.scotsman-ice.com.

Enodis plc (www.enodis.com) is a worldwide company focused on the design, manufacture, and supply of food equipment.  Through its two operating groups, Global Food Service Equipment and Food Retail Equipment, it has 27 factories in 8 countries and a large portfolio of premium brands, including Delfield, Scotsman, Frymaster, Lincoln, Cleveland, Garland, US Range, ICE-O-Matic, Jackson, Merco Savory, Dean, Varimixer, and Merrychef in foodservice, and Kysor/Warren and Kysor Panel Systems in food retail equipment. 

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