Industrial Excellence Awards come to UK

A prestigious award – previously won by companies such as BMW, Siemens and Airbus – it is now open to UK firms who want to be recognised for their excellence in manufacturing and service processing.

The Industrial Excellence Awards (IEA) have benchmarked European manufacturing competitiveness since 1995. Now the awards have found a UK partner in Cambridge Judge Business School and have arrived on these shores to seek out the ‘best of British’ industry.

The awards are open to exemplary factories and administrative service centres that have succeeded in creating value, growth and jobs in the UK through excellence in management, total productivity, innovation in products, services and processes, as well as supply chain partnerships.

Entrants need to be able to demonstrate the consistent implementation of their corporate strategy in all processes and with the involvement of all employees.

Site visits will give judges the chance to see processes in action and speak to employees. All participating plants and business units will receive qualitative benchmarking feedback on their business model. The UK winner, along with the other national winners, will then go on to compete for the top European prize.

Open for entries now, the UK IEA’s 2014 timeline is:

April 30th: Submission deadline for applications

May: Finalists selected and notified

May/June: Site visits to the finalists

Early July: The announcement and award of the UK champions, along with the other national champions. Benchmarking feedback provided to all entrants.  

September/October: European conference and award ceremony.

The UK lead on the IEAs is Dr Jane Davies (pictured), lecturer in Operations Management at Cambridge Judge Business School. She said: "The IEAs for the first time offer UK companies the opportunity to be recognised for the effort and ingenuity that they demonstrate in their manufacturing and service processes every day. We have many superb, world-class businesses achieving excellence in their strategy, processes and people and these awards will offer the perfect platform to showcase this. Entrants have the chance to compete for the UK and European titles, with all competitors receiving high quality feedback from very experienced academics. I urge UK companies to apply and showcase their world class capabilities.”

UK companies are invited to apply at the IEA website http://industrial-excellence-award.eu/home/ or through Cambridge Judge Business School at http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/home/