In 2023, we embarked on a new initiative – the Seraph Operational Excellence Awards.

This initiative was born out of our deep passion for automotive manufacturing excellence and our desire to recognize and celebrate automotive suppliers across North America who excel in this field.

The selection process for our award recipients involves two steps. First, organizations underwent an online assessment in round one. Then, the top applicants proceeded to round two, which includes a complimentary in-person plant assessment conducted by the Seraph team.

On June 15th, 2023, we celebrated the winning organizations at the Seraph Operational Excellence Awards ceremony.

During this event, we applauded the achievements of five outstanding organizations across five categories: operations, quality, human resources, logistics, and overall best supplier. It was a truly remarkable and inspiring occasion.

Looking ahead, we are gearing up for the 2024 Seraph Operational Excellence Awards, where we will soon begin the search for five new winners in the upcoming year.

Onsite Assessment

We will select four (4) winning students for the “Manufacturing Excellence Leadership Program.” Each recipient will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to one of the on-site plant assessments conducted by the Seraph team for the Operational Excellence Awards.

The assessment will give our winning students an up close and personal experience in shadowing the Seraph team, while we are conducting a plant assessment to determine the health of the organization across operations, logistics, quality and human resources.

This is a unique opportunity to be able to learn from operational consultants that have tremendous expertise in manufacturing. You will gain an inside perspective of a plants operations and the components that make up the health of an organizations processes.

These assessments are scheduled to occur between March 25 – April 30, 2024. We realize that as students you typically have graduation dates towards the end of April, so we will do our best to work with preexisting graduation dates.

Your Onsite Assessment Involvement

• Each selected candidate will collaborate with the Seraph consultant team, following our proven established assessment model.
• Your task will involve identifying and documenting an area of excellence within your host organization. The outcome will be a final report created by you, showcasing what you perceive as a true example of operational excellence. This report will serve as an educational tool that we may share with the broader manufacturing community by featuring it on Seraph’s website and LinkedIn. Portions of your final report may also be displayed on a large monitor during the cocktail area at the Operational Excellence Awards reception.
• During your assessment, you will capture your experience by taking photographs within the assessment facility.

Be Our Guest at the 2024 Operational Excellence Awards

• On June 6, 2024, we will be hosting the 2nd annual Operational Excellence Awards ceremony held at Chroma in Detroit, MI. All recipients of the Manufacturing Excellence Leadership Program will join the gala as our guest. This evening will provide the opportunity to mingle with industry experts from across North America.
• We may decide to have one of our selected candidates deliver a brief speech about their experience. This speech will provide you with excellent exposure to a large network of industry contacts, allowing you to share your experience with our attendees.

Meet and Greet with our CEO or President of North America

Each selected candidate will have the opportunity to engage in a one-on-one discussion via Teams with either Ambrose Conroy, our CEO, or Thomas Kowal, our President of North America. This is a unique chance for you to connect with individuals who are passionate about giving back to the industry. You can look forward to sharing stories and discussing your future with them.

Create a submission packet (a single PDF document) to include the following elements:

• Cover:
  • Full name, address, email address and phone number.
  • University / school name, what year in college or trade school you currently are enrolled, and degree / program being studied.
  • LinkedIn Profile.
• Professional resume

• Applicants should prepare a short writing, with an estimated 300-500-word count, to describe their interest in manufacturing and their area of interest in this field.

• Additional component – share something that the applicant has created, one of the 3:
  • A case study of core operational concepts that were misunderstood or misapplied.
  • A case study of a nearby business or government program that demonstrated efficiency.
  • A short report about a project they’ve done that improved the efficiency of a system (could be through school, a club or just an independent project).

It is recommended for all additional component to include:

• Name of project.
• First and last name(s) of individuals that were involved in creating this piece of work.
• Date created.
• Include the reason this case study or report was created.
• Include names of organizations and/or individuals that would need to be contacted in case permission to publish if needed.
• It is recommended to stay within a 500 – 750-word count if using a Word Document, or less than 6 slides in Powerpoint format (either format saved as pdf and merged with the main file).