Self Assessment Audit (SAA)
This is the basis of entry into the MX Awards. It is the detailed questionnaire that enables you to benchmark performance on a range of factors that are essential to manufacturing excellence.
The questionnaire has been devised by the experts at the Warwick Manufacturing Group and it is intended to be searching. It will require your company to answer focused questions on all parts of your business.
It’s the rigour of the audit that provides its true value. For many companies it is the prime reason for entering, providing a unique opportunity to assess their own performance against best practice.
There are 11 sections and you can complete as many sections as you wish.
At the end of the process you will receive a fully detailed comparison of where you stand against the best with practical suggestions for further development.
We offer all entrants a Mentor to guide them through the process of completing the SAA. The Mentors have been chosen as they have previously been excellent assessors, are extremely knowledgeable about industry and will help you to gain the most from your MX application.
Each time an entry is received and a Mentor has been requested, we will pass your contact details to a Mentor in your region, who will then contact you to discuss your application and answer your technical questions.
Assessor Visit
The best assessments in each category are then visited by a three person team of assessors. They will use the day to confirm a company’s eligibility for an award.
Assessors, over 90 of them, are all trained to assess company performance to MX benchmarks. All are senior engineers, industry figures and business people, many come from our partners and sponsors.
The visit has been compared by entrants to a free consultancy session.
The format of the day may vary but an essential part is a series of presentations with questions and answers so the assessors can verify the performance the company has claimed in the audit.
After all the visits, successful companies will be asked to attend the finals in London.
Lead Assessor, Bob Shanks, talks to some apprentices during a visit to decide the award for Best Partnerships between Business and Education.
Presentation and Final Judging
Companies present in front of the MX judging panel for up to 40 minutes including questions and answers in the prestigious lecture theatre at the Institution if Mechanical Engineers in Westminster.
The judging panel is composed of top names from the manufacturing industry. As with the visit, the presentation is a valuable exercise for many entrants.
At the end of the two days of judging, the panel make their decisions. They are guided, but not bound by the audit and visit comments. The results are kept secret until the announcement at the ceremony.
The judges observe a presentation from a finalist company