Winners announced during gala ceremony at EastPack
UBM Canon Packaging Group announced the winners of the 2014 Visionary Awards last night at a gala event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, held in conjunction with the AmeriStar Package Awards and the EastPack event.
Presented by UBM Canon, and sponsored by Packaging Digest, Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News and EastPack, the Visionary Awards pays tribute to individuals and teams who showed vision and leadership in advancing their company's goals of innovation, differentiation, savings and growth. Visionary Award winners were selected based on the significance of their accomplishments, the measureable results of their accomplishments, and their success in motivating their team, based on personal accounts/testimonials. Judging was performed by an impartial panel of third-party jurors with expertise in packaging.
2014 Visionary Award Winners
PACKAGING PRODUCTION & OPERATIONS CATEGORY
GOLD AWARD – Diageo Team Cube, consisting of Paul Millar, Head of Packaging Technology; Dawn Reilly, COGS Reduction Brand Change Manager; Ray Webb, Project Engineer; Ian Bell, Packaging Development Technologist; and Donal Comerford, Central Manufacturing Lead, for developing and constructing a radical concept—a low-cost modular production plant for the blending and packaging of spirits—and commercialized it in multiple geographies within 12 months. The solution met operational requirements and saved 60 percent on capital investment.
SILVER AWARD – Mother Parkers RealCup Operations Startup Team, consisting of Stephen Leung, Plant Manager: Chris Meffen, Production Manager; Dennis Paynter, President of Coffee Operations, Lib Trombetta, Vice Director of Innovation and Technology; Yucheng Fu, Product Engineering Manager; and Janet Nagy, Human-Resources Manager, for completely gutting the existing Specialty Plant, dedicated to organic coffee and other specialty products, and doubling the size to the current RealCup Plant.
Since the conversion, the plant has successfully launched more than 180 individual stock-keeping units, driving growth in the company's private label and branded business in the exploding category of single-serve coffee and tea.
PACKAGING DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN CATEGORY
GOLD AWARD – Joe Mase, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Sagent Pharmaceuticals, for his development of two significant healthcare packaging solutions. The PreventIV Measures program at Sagent is a comprehensive and proprietary approach to packaging and labeling that helps healthcare professionals accurately distinguish between look-alike, sound-alike products, making it easier for them to select the correct one. Mase also invented the Enlightened HRBC (high-resolution bar code) when he worked at Baxter, making it easier for bar codes on transparent IV bags to be scanned by printing the white spaces instead of the black bars.
SILVER AWARD – Mother Parkers Innovation and Technology team, consisting of Margaret LaRocque, Packaging Engineer; Shelby Parkinson, Analytical Lab Technician; Yucheng Fu, Product Engineering Manager; Paul Yang, Packaging Manager; and Lib Trombetta, Director of Innovation and Technology, for their EcoCup packaging project. The single-serve beverage cup design consists of a clear lid and translucent capsule. A breakaway tab enables the components to be easily separated by hand for recycling and/or composting.
The ceremony also honored winners of the AmeriStar Package Awards, sponsored by the Institute of Packaging Professionals.
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