Abbott Wins Fifth Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence

Abbott has been awarded the Shingo Prize for a top-performing culture at its nutrition manufacturing facility and distribution center in Sturgis, Mich. The Abbott Park, Ill., company now has five sites with active Shingo Prizes, which are recognized for five years, making it the company with the greatest number of current prizes in the world, the company said.

Presented by the Shingo Institute at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, the Shingo Prize is a prestigious award in the manufacturing industry that recognizes organizations with outstanding culture and operational performance and the ability to continually improve and deliver sustainable results.

''This award is a testament to what is at the heart of our mission every day – making and delivering high-quality nutrition products that help children grow and adults thrive,'' said Abbott Nutrition Vice President of Supply Chain John Murphy. ''I’m thrilled by this honor for our teams at Sturgis – it’s their hard work and commitment to a culture of excellence that enables us to best serve our consumers.''

Abbott’s Sturgis facility has operated for 70 years and produces more than 100 adult and pediatric nutritional products, such as Similac infant formulas. It supplies nutrition products for the U.S. and 60 countries worldwide, delivering organic, kosher and halal varieties. The site employs hundreds of people who play a vital role in facility operations, including distribution, environmental health and safety, quality, supply chain, human resources, engineering and finance.

''Every day our teams are driven by the fact that their work matters – in the lives of babies, children and adults around the world,'' said Sturgis Site Director Patrick Cooper. ''The Shingo Prize validates their commitment to producing and distributing high-quality nutrition products that people can trust and enjoy.''

On a quest for continuous improvement, the company said its nutrition business started its enterprise excellence journey nearly a decade ago after benchmarking the best industry operations and performance strategies, which led to crafting a strategy to achieve excellence in the areas of culture, continuous improvement, enterprise alignment, and results-driven execution. 

The resulting program, which aligns with Shingo principles, outlines procedures and systems for driving improvement and results, Abbott said, explaining that in the nutrition business, this includes cultural enablers such as a pledge, a set of commitments that employees agree to uphold to consistently drive actions aligned with operational excellence. In total, these efforts have helped Abbott facilities globally cultivate high-performing organizations to ensure the delivery of safe, high-quality products.

With the recent win, the Sturgis site joins these current Abbott Shingo Prize recipients:

• 2019. Nutrition manufacturing facility in Singapore, as the first company to win the award in Asia.
• 2018. Nutrition manufacturing facility in Granada, Spain, as the first company to win the award in Spain.
• 2017. Nutrition manufacturing facility in Sligo, Ireland.
• 2016. Diagnostics manufacturing site in Longford, Ireland.