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Benchmark Electronics, Inc., a global provider of design, engineering, and manufacturing services, announced it has been recognized as a winner in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards in the Transformational Cultures category. The company is being recognized for its outstanding achievement in the development of the Benchmark Enterprise eXcellence (BEX) Olympics, a program designed to bring together the company's global operations teams to compete in a fun, Olympics-themed event aimed at integrating Lean Six Sigma culture and continuous improvement methodologies into daily work. NAM's press release announcing the winners is also available here.
"It is an honor to be recognized by NAM for the hard work our team put into the BEX Olympics, but more importantly for the impact it's had on the culture of our global organization," said Jeff Benck, president and CEO, Benchmark. "I am proud of our entire operation's leadership team for creating a fun and engaging program, as well as every member of our organization who participated and developed innovative Lean Six Sigma ideas to significantly improve our operational and quality performance."
The goal of the BEX Olympics is to create a friendly competition across Benchmark's global facilities aimed at continuous improvement across a variety of key performance indicators enabling improved operational efficiency, quality, and customer experience. It creates both an opportunity to educate and train employees to be change agents of continuous improvement and enterprise excellence, while significantly improving our overall quality and operational efficiency. It has also proven to be an excellent way to further engage employees in Benchmark's mission and values.
In the second year of the BEX Olympics, Benchmark saw engagement from employees rise from 175 change agents (employees) in 2019-2020 to more than 350 change agents across 16 teams and 7 countries in 2021. In addition, the results of the competition from year one to year two of the Olympics amounted to a significant improvement in costs savings.
Benchmark will be recognized at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala, which will take place on June 29, 2022, at the JW Marriott in Marco Island, Florida. The gala is the closing event for Rethink: The Manufacturing Leadership Council Summit.
Accepting the award on Benchmark's behalf will be: Chris Singleton, VP, Operational Excellence and Thomas Van Eimeren, Corporate Director, Lean Six Sigma.