Yokogawa Recognized for Manufacturing Excellence

Yokogawa Electric Asia received top honors in the 2010 Manufacturing Excellence Award (MAXA) for its outstanding achievements in operational excellence, innovation and sustainability as a core global manufacturing site in Singapore. The highest national recognition for manufacturing excellence, MAXA was launched in 2006 as part of Singapore’s efforts to raise manufacturing standards and develop a culture of innovation.

Yokogawa’s Singapore facility is said to be the most productive in the company’s global network and accounts for 75 percent of the group’s global supply of distributed control systems (DCS) and measuring instruments. Leveraging Singapore as a vantage point to integrate production management methodology from Japan with automation knowledge from Europe and the U., the Singapore facility has increased its output five-fold from S$200 million to S$1 billion over the past three decades.

“I am honored that our company has received the prestigious MAXA award this year. Organizations, especially those in the manufacturing industry like ours, will need to continually revamp and transform, in order to survive in a business climate of intense competition and economic uncertainty,” said Lai Ah Keow, managing director, Yokogawa Electric Asia. “And we must further strengthen our core competencies and commit to being a center for manufacturing excellence for industrial automation products and solutions.”

Also sited in Singapore is the company’s Global Training Centre, which aims to share and impart best manufacturing practices for its employees in all overseas plants and offices. In addition, Yokogawa’s Singapore plant is the first site outside of Japan to develop and carry out scale-up manufacturing for the company’s foray into avionic products.

Aside from Yokogawa, the other finalists in the running for the MAXA 2010 award were Becton Dickinson Critical Care Systems, Nestlé (Singapore), and STATS ChipPAC Singapore, while Biosensors Interventional Technologies received the Growth Award, which commends promising Singapore companies in their quest for manufacturing excellence. All the companies received their awards from Singapore’s Finance Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, at a celebration dinner on August 26.

MAXA is organised by Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB) together with partners McKinsey, Singapore-MIT Alliance, and the Singapore Manufacturers’ Federation.