Two Accuride Plants Receive 2015 AME Excellence Award

Sept. 8, 2015
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) has honored Accuride Erie Operations and Accuride Rockford Operations with a 2015 AME Excellence Award.

The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) has honored Accuride Erie Operations and Accuride Rockford Operations with a 2015 AME Excellence Award.

An AME representative will visit the Erie, Pa. facility to present the award on Sept. 18 and the Rockford, Ill., facility on Sept. 22. Both plants will also be honored during the AME 2015 International Conference, taking place Oct. 19-23 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The AME Excellence Award recognizes North American manufacturing plants that have demonstrated excellence in manufacturing and business. The rigorous selection process begins when a company submits an extensive achievement report based on the AME Excellence Award evaluation criteria. For companies that score high enough during the achievement report review, an intensive site visit is completed, during which a volunteer team of manufacturing practitioners validates the submitted achievement report. Only a handful of applicants merit a site visit and approximately one-third of the visits result in a site being recognized as an award recipient.

Accuride Henderson Operations in Kentucky received the AME Excellence Award in 2014.

“Accuride truly embodies what the AME Excellence Award stands for – achieving excellence throughout the enterprise,” said Barbara Morrison, AME president and CEO. “An achievement this big demonstrates that Accuride employees at all levels are engaged and committed to the lean journey.”

During their evaluation, the AME assessment team highlighted Accuride Erie Operations’ continuous improvement philosophy, observing management driving a culture of metrics-based performance to satisfy customer needs. The assessors also praised the facility’s standout strengths of detailed level planning of plan-for-every-part (PFEP), well-organized product development data and their strong focus on material flow improvements utilizing value stream mapping, visual kanban pull processes and more.

The AME assessment team noted, “One of the most impressive aspects of the site visit was the obvious and visible cooperation with the UAW union. Union leadership clearly respects management and supports the continuous improvement effort. It was obvious there is a great deal of goal sharing, collaboration and respect.”

During the Accuride Rockford Operations site visit, the AME assessment team highlighted the plant’s standout strengths, which included the application of visual scheduling boards resulting in the launch of fourth-generation production pull boards and the use of value stream mapping in the factory and for office processes. The assessment team praised the Rockford facility’s corporate and factory hoshin kanri, and the execution program tied to the associate incentive/bonus program.  The assessment team also commended the Rockford facility’s partnership with a perishable tooling supplier and effort to use 100 percent of tool life.

Accuride Rockford Operations manufactures Gunite® brand brake drums, slack adjusters and other wheel-end components for the North American commercial vehicle industry. Along with its focus on innovative product design, development and manufacturing, Rockford Operations continues to emphasize quality and dependable performance for customers. 

Accuride Erie Operations is one of two Accuride plants in the United States dedicated solely to the manufacturing of forged aluminum wheels for the North American commercial vehicle industry. Erie Operations contains forge presses and advanced heat treat technology, coupled with best-in-class automated aluminum wheel machining and polishing technology.