Winner: Mark Haller, Owner/President | Tri-Tec Manufacturing, Kent Ask manufacturers their most pressing concern and the almost universal response is, Where can I find good workers? One of the most active business executives working to answer that question, not just for himself but for the industry, is Mark Haller, whose Kent-based company makes valves and…

Winner: Northwest Center, SeattleWhen the Northwest Center wanted to lean up its operations, it didnt just hire a consultant. It brought in Masaaki Imai, known as the father of the philosophy of kaizen, which focuses on the concept of continual improvement. It also invited business leaders from around the region to join in. That mixture…

Winner: Colmac Coil Manufacturing, SeattleWhats a big manufacturing operation doing in the wilds of Eastern Washington? Staying close to its customer base and building the products that make one of the states most important industriesfood production and processingpossible. Colmac Coil produces the components of large heat transfer and refrigeration systems for packing and cold-storage warehouses,…

Winner: Alliance Packaging, RentonIndustrial products dont come much more basic or commoditized than the cardboard box, right? Not the way Renton-based Alliance Packaging sees it. By emphasizing innovation, customer relationships and lean internal operations, Alliance, created by the 2001 merger of Sound Container Inc. and Seattle Packaging Corporation, has grown to more than 500 employees…

If theres one thing weve learned in the four years of the Washington Manufacturing Awards, its how critical innovationbe it in product and technology development, operational efficiency or managementis to the success of a manufacturer. If theres another thing weve learned, its that innovation is not an isolated occurrence, or it had better not be…

Two men talk by a campfire. Subsequent conversations simmer for more than a year and eventually ignite a new branding idea: joining a tea packer and a university. I just about fell off my chair, says Eric Ring of Choice Organic Teas, remembering when he first learned that Tim Callahan, the guy across the fire…

The tri-cities area was the home of a historic endeavor in nuclear energy. As part of the Manhattan Project, the first full-scale plutonium-production reactor in the world was built at Hanford to produce material for the first nuclear bomb. The site was also of one of the nuclear energy industrys biggest embarrassments. Of five nuclear…