Lean & Green Award for production plant of Festo
The Global Production Center Sofia in Bulgaria is one of the winners of the “Lean & Green Management Award 2019”. The plant was honoured in the “General Manufacturing” category for its successful measures for improving resource efficiency in industry.
Resource-efficient value chains that both reduce costs and increase the sustainability of business processes are an important component of the production plant strategy of Festo and are implemented at all plants worldwide. This focus has been acknowledged with the Lean & Green Management Award bestowed on the Global Production Center Sofia for implementing the so-called OPEX (Operational Excellence) approach in value flow organisation, and in view of the results achieved.
“This award recognises the concerted efforts of all employees at our location. It shows that we are on the right track to becoming the ‘ideal value flow organisation’,” said a contented Kalin Dobrev, Head of Operations Electronics and Drives in Bulgaria. “The necessary resources along the value chain, and responsibility for the production of certain product family groups, were distributed among autonomous teams at the plant.”
Cooperation as a success factor
The judges were impressed by the way the production plant implements green elements as an integral component of its vision and uses resource efficiency as a competitive advantage – with highly motivated teams that concentrated on reducing wastage in all areas along the value chain and achieved excellent results within a very short time.
Lean & Green Management Award – a top accolade
The “Lean & Green Management Award” was conducted this year for the eighth time by the advisory firms Growtth Consulting Europe and Quadriga Consult. Experts regard this award as one of the top accolades bestowed on production plants. The first stage of the assessment of candidates took the form of a questionnaire. The organiser’s consultants then carried out so-called “Lean & Green Assessments” on location with selected finalists among the participating companies. A panel of experts finally assessed the results and decided on the prize-winners.
The winners in 2019
Over 250 production plants from more than 10 countries and 20 different industries participated in the best practice exchange and the award assessment. All the companies have excellent management systems, in which efficient, resource-saving processes help make the production of tomorrow more sustainable. Further winners are Volkswagen, Wolfsburg plant (“Automotive OEM” category); Bosch Diesel, s.r.o., Jihlava plant (“Lean & Green Supplier Excellence” special award); Iveco España S.L., Madrid plant (“Green Excellence in Truck Production” special award); and FCA Italy SpA, Bielsko-Biała plant (“Lean Excellence in Engines & Components Manufacturing” special award).
Festo is a global player and an independent family-owned company with headquarters in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany. Festo has set standards in industrial automation technology and technical education ever since its establishment, thereby making a contribution to sustainable development of the environment, the economy and society. The company supplies pneumatic and electrical automation technology to 300,000 customers of factory and process automation in over 35 industries. Digitalization, AI and the LifeTech sector with medical technology and laboratory automation are becoming increasingly important. The products and services are available in 176 countries. With about 20,600 employees in over 250 branch offices in around 60 countries worldwide, Festo achieved a turnover of around €3.65 billion in 2023. Each year around 7% of this turnover is invested in research and development. In this learning company, 1.5 % of turnover is invested in basic and further training. Festo Didactic SE is a leading provider of technical education and training and offers its customers worldwide comprehensive digital and physical learning solutions in the industrial environment.
