NACCO Materials Handling Group Inc. (NMHG) was recently named a 2014 Manufacturing Leadership (ML) Award winner by the ML Awards panel of judges for excellence demonstrated by its enterprise product cost management project.
Now in its 10th year, the ML Awards program honors companies and individuals that are shaping the future of global manufacturing. The program recognizes transformational business projects in a variety of categories, including product, supply chain, customer value and enterprise technology leadership.
A leading manufacturer with more than $2.5 billion in global sales, NMHG designs, engineers and manufactures a comprehensive line of lift trucks and aftermarket parts. With its enterprise product cost management project, the company was looking for new ways to streamline its product development process and offset rising costs of materials while maintaining efficient production schedules. It wanted to accelerate the time it took to design and deliver profitable new products and parts to market.
Leveraging aPriori's software platform, NMHG enabled its design engineers to quickly and easily compare the cost of different product design alternatives and understand the cost impact of different design options. As changes are made or new product specifications are introduced, the software automatically reassesses and provides an updated product cost quickly and easily. This opened up a new set of cost-optimization alternatives for NMHG and enabled its engineers to evaluate more design options without delaying time to market. It also created more accountability for cost earlier in the product development process.
NMHG and the other recipients of the ML Awards will be honored at the Manufacturing Leadership Summit on June 3-5, 2014, at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
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