Plant Tours

Nearly 30 years ago, in a Seattle-area garage, Jeff Bezos and the few employees of his upstart online retailer, Amazon, knelt on the floor to pack customer orders into boxes. One evening, Bezos suggested ordering kneepads to make the work…

Rockwell Automation’s history points to a pioneering drive to make machines smarter. From its 1903 founding as the Compression Rheostat Company, soon to be renamed the Allen-Bradley Company, the company started with an early prototype machine controller and is now…

From its origins as a one-person shop on a central Iowa farm to its current status as a multinational global operation, the Vermeer Corporation has grown in every sense: number of employees, production locations and dealerships, the industries that it…

When a company traces its history back nearly 150 years, its story is likely one of continuous change and evolution. For Dotson Iron Castings of Mankato, Minn., it is also a story of survival, innovation and respect for people. During…

From its namesake chocolate bars to the immensely popular Reese’s Cups, The Hershey Company has been a maker of beloved confections for many decades. But no matter which variety is your personal favorite, Hershey’s powerhouse combination of manufacturing, fulfillment and…

When Whirlpool Corp.’s Findlay Operations began its World Class Manufacturing (WCM) journey in 2018, the effort was envisioned as a standardized way to drive out waste and loss while keeping their customers in mind. In March, the Whirlpool team welcomed…

About 100 Manufacturing Leadership Council members, associate members, guests, and staff descended on Lexington, Ky., in November for a tour of Schneider Electric’s smart factory – a 65-year-old brownfield facility that showcases artificial intelligence, augmented reality, remote monitoring, and predictive…

Lincoln Electric has a long and storied history since its 1895 founding in Cleveland, Ohio, as a manufacturer of electric motors. Today, it is a global industry leader in welding equipment and consumables, additive manufacturing, and automation solutions, and has…

Manufacturing Leadership Council members toured The Smart Factory @ Wichita to see the latest Manufacturing 4.0 technologies at the showcase factory.

For Intertape Polymer Group, a manufacturer of paper- and film-based packaging products, the last six years have been a time of significant growth – and change. Revenue during that period doubled from $750 million to $1.5 billion at the end…

IBM’s digital journey is keenly focused on building a cognitive enterprise that embraces an agile culture of innovation, combined with a client focus that leverages exponential technologies to deliver greater value. IBM executives on the MLC’s recent virtual tour of…

Nexteer Automotive is on a mission to make driving a car safer, more fuel-efficient, and future-focused through its production of steering and driveline safety-critical car and truck electronic and hydraulic power products. In addition to electric and hydraulic power steering…

As manufacturers accelerate the deployment of digital technologies to modernize and interconnect their facilities and supply chains, they also open up new risks for cyber-attacks, stressed Chandra Brown, CEO of MxD, during a recent virtual plant tour for Manufacturing Leadership…

Manufacturing Leadership Council members recently took a virtual tour around MxD’s Innovation Center in Chicago to learn how to integrate digital manufacturing technologies using existing legacy equipment in ways that can help increase agility without breaking the bank or getting…

“Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” While that old saying might be a maxim for household budgeting, it also could describe Intertape Polymer Group Inc.’s (IPG) approach to developing an award-winning energy management program. Its…

Manufacturing Leadership Council members toured Clif Bar’s three-year old energy bar plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, and learned about the company’s 5 Aspirations business model.

In 1979, McDonald’s launched the Happy Meal, ESPN hit the airwaves for the first time, and Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” became the first Top 40 rap single. It was also a year when Amway undertook a massive hiring effort for…