Kuraray America’s La Porte Facility Named Finalist for Operational Excellence at the 2026 Manufacturing Leadership Awards

Congratulations to our Kuraray America, Inc.'s (KAI) La Porte facility on being named a finalist in the hashtag#OperationalExcellence category at the 2026 Manufacturing Leadership Awards by the Manufacturing Leadership Council. 

Congratulations to all the finalists in the Operational Excellence category, being part of such a strong group of industry leaders makes this recognition even more meaningful. 

Our submission title--- Kuralytix: AI-Driven Reliability Transformation to Close Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Performance Gaps at Kuraray America, Inc.'s La Porte Plant

With Project Kuralytix, Kuraray America is advancing reliability management through AI-driven and predictive analytics, transforming insights that once took days into actionable intelligence delivered in minutes.

Project Kuralytix utilizes the Pinnacle Newton™ platform. The project brings together data from five operational systems into one unified analytics environment at Kuraray America’s La Porte plant to help improve equipment availability, reduce unplanned downtime, and optimize maintenance decisions.

The project matters because it gives teams faster access to actionable insight, helping answer three critical questions:
✅ When will equipment fail?
✅ How will it fail?
✅ What actions should be prioritized?

By addressing documented Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) performance gaps and continuing to shift decision-making from reactive to proactive, Kuralytix helps unlock stronger plant performance that supports smarter, data-driven operations.

Thank you Charles Neal, Daniel Velasquez, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Birkby



See More: Manufacturing Leadership Council