BENTON HARBOR, MI—Whirlpool Corp. has received 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards for its Project Tracking System and Global Kaizen Power Pitch project. The company will be recognized at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala, which will take place on June 29 in Marco Island, FL.

The awards are presented by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Manufacturing Leadership Council. NAM is the largest manufacturing association in the U.S., representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector in all 50 states.

The Project Tracking System provides visibility to all current and future projects across 14 manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Mexico. This system integrates project leaders’ knowledge and workload to assign the appropriate leader to each project and also manages project timing and the root cause of delays. This innovative product provides one source of connected project management across all of Whirlpool’s North American manufacturing plants.

The Global Kaizen (process improvements) Power Pitch is a competition that took place between May 2021 and Jan. 2022, aimed at recognizing plants for delivering manufacturing excellence and motivating employees to deliver products with a deeper understanding and application of manufacturing excellence methodology.

During the competition, there were 85 Kaizen “Battles” with 151 Kaizen’s presented to various cross-functional judging committees. A total of 618 project team members took part, with 197 committee members. Manufacturing practices put in place as a result of the competition resulted in millions of dollars in savings at the plants.