The winners of The Manufacturer of the Year Awards 2012 explain what winning means to them:
We are obviously delighted to get this award for the second year running. We took what we had achieved last year a further 10% this year.
Over several years, the hard work that I personally and the team have put in has come to fruition. This award says that we are recognised as doing really special things in manufacturing, and good things within the UK. Four or five years ago people didn't know who we were. They didn't know that our factory in Basildon was producing 25,000 tractors a year.
Winning the Leadership and Strategy award is awesome for Accolade Wines. A huge amount of work goes into this area of our business and to be recognised by the industry to say that we are being successful and strategic in what we are doing in this area is phenomenal.
Winning the SME Manufacturer of the Year Award was absolutely fantastic. It is going to raise our profile and hopefully open us up to new markets and customers.
Although we are a large SME, Tharsus is a relatively small company in comparison to some, so this accolade gives us further credibility when talking to new customers. We won against some very good competition and this will help to cement positivity around the site. It's a reward for the journey that we are on and external recognition for the guys on the shop floor.
I think it is of the utmost importance to recognise young people in the business...It is the people that breed the ideas in a business, not the hierarchy, and people at all levels can breed a lot of life into a business.
What a great showcase for UK manufacturing at its best. The whole team at APEX Linvar is proud and absolutely delighted to win the award. We have made great strides to improve in all areas of the business so this award is testament to the hard work of everyone at the company.
But it doesn't mean that we can be complacent. Manufacturing is an evolving industry and in order to stay at the forefront of what we do we need to continuously evaluate what we do, and how, and develop our people and processes accordingly.
There's a lot of work to do... Sometimes, the whole culture of a business has to change and this can take time. With the right people, like the people we have, it can be done - and this award proves just that.