Espelkamp (Germany) October 30, 2014 - The specialist publication "Produktion" and the corporate consultancy A.T. Kearney have named the subsidiary company HARTING Electronics, based at Plant 1 in Espelkamp, as the overall winner of the "Factory of the Year" award. "Factory of the Year/Global Excellence in Operations (GEO)" is the most well-established benchmark competition for the manufacturing industry in Germany having been launched in 1992.

Torsten Ratzmann, Senior Vice President Production and Logistics at the HARTING Technology Group, was delighted with the award: "It is like winning the Champions League. Our continual efforts to achieve streamlined and effective production processes have been acknowledged with receipt of the overall winner award."

Above all, the jury lauded "outstanding continuous development over a period of years" in its verdict and the "strong focus on people and employees." Its reasons also including HARTING having "clear orientation on strengths and differentiation in global competition."

The jurors went on to praise the "extremely good production system focused on continuous improvement" and the "development of in-house systems e.g. for electroplating to ensure technical differentiation." "I wish to thank all HARTING employees. This award provides us with an incentive to further improve our processes in future," remarked Ratzmann.