In Good Times and Bad, Partnership Spells Success

In my recent conversations about new plant technology with industry suppliers and food manufacturing leaders, phrases like “the best partnerships ever” and “we couldn’t have done it without our partners” keep popping up.

Close cooperation between food and beverage processors and their suppliers and engineering consultants has always been a crucial component of manufacturing excellence. In fact, PMMI founded the Alliance for Innovation and Operational Excellence (AIOE) back in 2011. 

Over the past decade, the importance of partnership has accelerated. Today, the OpX Leadership Network, formerly known as AIOE, provides a forum where the brightest meet to identify and solve common operational challenges and apply best practices and innovative solutions to real-world manufacturing challenges via open dialogues between consumer packaged goods companies and OEMs.

In the last 10 years, OpX groups, made up of a community of manufacturing, engineering, and operations professionals, have released free work documents and guidelines to help enterprises function at top performance levels. The topics include workforce engagement, total cost of ownership, overall equipment effectiveness, hygienic equipment design, virtual factory acceptance tests, and more. For the past year and a half, ProFood World has shared many examples of successful partnerships through its series of articles called OpX Intel.