For each of the last 10 years, the Best Plants Award has been given to 10 manufacturing facilities. This year’s winners were selected from a pool of 419 nominations.

“These plants are the finest in North America and among the best in the world,” stated John R. Brandt, IndustryWeek’s editor-in-chief. “Their success stories ... are inspirations for managers everywhere.”

A team of the magazine’s editors evaluated nominees. Plants reported performance and practices in such categories as benchmarking, community involvement, customer and supplier relations, employee involvement, environment and safety programs, inventory management, manufacturing operations and flexibility, market results, productivity, quality, and use of technology.

Scroll Technologies has reduced its lead times from three weeks to two weeks and, since 1997, has reduced defect rates by more than two-thirds.

Safety is another element of the plant’s success. Since June of 1997, employees worked 2.3 million hours without a lost-time injury.