Dorian Awards 2023 Logo in grey and red

Dorian Awards | 2023

Congratulations to our Winners & Finalists

The Dorian Awards

Throughout the year we guide you and your teams in developing your problem solving skills so you can solve any problem faster and more efficiently. Now it’s time to recognize your successes.

About the Awards

Every year, teams across the world complete problem solving projects worthy of recognition. The 2023 Dorian Awards honor problem solving teams, leaders, and companies who exemplified outstanding application of Shainin methods or leadership during the 2022 year.

These projects were of critical importance to our customers. They helped resolve long-standing issues, improve bottom lines, and enhance operations around the globe.

2023 Dorian Award Trophy - Clear, angular vertical palque on a clear base with Dorian Awards Logo embossed on it

Announcing Dorian Award Winners

Award Categories, Winners, & Finalists

Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination in 2022; we were impressed with the quality of nominations submitted. Following a lengthy and rigorous review process completed by our global review board, we’ve selected several simply exceptional teams and individuals as winners and finalists for the Dorian Awards.

Here are the 2023 Dorian Award Winners & Finalists for each category.

Company Awards

This category of awards is for companies who have successfully developed a Red X Program within a facility, division, region, or company and can demonstrate impactful improvements based on that development.

Bottom Line Improvement Award

View Award Criteria

Winners:
American Axle & Manufacturing
  • Detroit, Michigan, USA
RBIN|QMM Bosch Limited
  • Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
United Automotive Electronic Systems CO., LTD.
  • Shanghai, P.R. China
Eurotranciatura
  • Querétaro, Mexico
Project of the year Awards

This category of awards is for project teams who have demonstrated outstanding application of Shainin methodologies in solving complex problems within their company.

Plant Manufacturing Project of the Year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
ZF – Farmington Hills, Michigan, USA
  • Team Leader: Michael O’Connor
  • Team Member: Matthew Warmuth
Finalists:
Robert Bosch Elektronika Kft –Hatvan, Hungary
  • Team Leader: Katalin Éva Szabóné Simon
  • Team Members: Zsofia Flora Lednyiczki-Virag, Dániel Borbándi, Kálmán Pap, Tamás Steklovits
BSH Electrical Appliances – Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • Team Leader: Dongmei Gao
  • Team Members: Falong Chen, Bangmeng Xia, Zhen Kong, Wenjian Yu, Lei He, Sunil Bajaj
Bosch –Jihlava, Czech Republic
  • Team Leader: Milan Heide
  • Team Members: Milan Kusy, Luis Lopez, Martin Vlcek, Joerg Kulzer
TE Connectivity – Woert, Germany
  • Team Leader: Patrick Barisch
  • Team Member: Oliver Dalino
Field reliability project of the year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
ROBERT Bosch (PS-LA) – Campinas, Brazil
  • Team Leader: Gilberto Mayer Junior
  • Team Members: Cristiano Brito, Danilo Camargo, Daniel Pereira, Emerson Barbosa, Lazaro Melo, Thiago Perussi, Danilo Silva, Giovani Guidolin, and Rodrigo Medina
Finalists:
Bosch Limited – Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
  • Team Leader: Challa Ramyasree
  • Team Members: Prakash Thangavel, Adesh Hegde, Sriharsha P R, Sriramakrishnan Jayaraman
Dana Incorporated – Essen, Germany
  • Team Leader: Marc Schwarzbuerger
  • Team Member: Cedric Sadlowski
Bosch Limited – Dong Nai, Vietnam
  • Team Leader: Tran Thi Thao
  • Team Members: Ophan Trong Vu, Tran Khac Bien, Lei Thi Kim Ngan, Bui Xuan Thinh, Le Quang Trung, Pham Duy Hau
Product Development project of the year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
Freudenberg FST GmbH – WEINHEIM, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
  • Team Leader: Markus Hauck
  • Team Member: Robert Leins
Finalists:
Robert Bosch Tool de Mexico SA de CV – Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
  • Team Leader: Manuel Adrian Lopez Ortiz
  • Team Member: Gustavo Rubio Salgado
Dana Incorporated – Arzignano, Italy
  • Team Leader: Francesco Savegnago
  • Team Member: Luca Priante
Resilient engineering project of the year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
TE Connectivity – Pressure Sensors - Freemont,CA usa and Shenzhen, China
  • Team Leader: Harry Flotemersch
  • Team Members: Vincent Wong, Oscar Segovia, Ross Qiu, Adam Feng, Stephen Hobson
Transaxional business project of the year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
Robert Bosch Automotive Steering LLC – Florence, Kentucky, USA
  • Team Leader: Maria Wilson
  • Team Member: Eric Miller
Finalists:
Robert Bosch Automotive Steering LLC – Florence, Kentucky, USA
  • Team Leader: Oscar Kawanishi
  • Team Members: Dylan Polley and Thomas Napoli
Detroit Diesel – Detroit, Michigan, USA
  • Team Leader: Brian Denney
  • Team Member: Daniel Hannemann
Leadership Awards

This category of awards is for leaders who have increased the impact of problem solving using Shainin technologies within their organization.

Rolling Top 5 Leadership excellence

View Award Criteria

Winners:
László Gyetvai
  • Robert Bosch Elektronika Kft.
  • Hatvan, Heves, Hungary
Stefan Forbes
  • Collins Aerospace
  • Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Peter Liao
  • BorgWarner Automotive
  • Shanghai. P.R. China
Hassene Touhent
  • Robert Bosch Sistemas Automotrices S.A. de C.V.
  • Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico
Red X Master of the Year

View Award Criteria

Winner:
José Fredy Hernández
  • Nemak Mexico
  • Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Finalists:
Juan Pacheco
  • American Axle Manufacturing
  • Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico
Kris Stark
  • Aptiv Corporation
  • Carmel, Indiana, USA
Luis Lopez
  • Robert Bosch LLC
  • Florence, Kentucky, USA

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Inquiries & Questions

Thank you for your interest and support of the Dorian Awards Program.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via our website. 

Curious about this year's awards?

Visit our Dorian Awards

Each year the criteria for the awards gets a little more rigorous as participation in nominations increases. View this year’s Dorian Awards and Criteria to see what projects are eligible for this year. 

Learn more about Dorian Awards
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Dorian Awards Criteria

Team Project Awards

Product Development
PROJECT OF THE YEAR

This category recognizes technical problems solved during product development and launch. These projects typically have small sample sizes to work with. Product development begins the lifecycle of a product. In the early stages, we want to test products so we can account for and adjust to prevent failures. Projects that win this award will demonstrate: 

  • Potential impact of the problem.
  • Effective use of the Shainin Red X tools to uncover the root cause.
  • The timeline of resolution from initial discovery to solution implemented. 

Dorian Awards Criteria

Team Project Awards

Field Reliability
PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Field failures impact more than just your bottom line. This category is dedicated to projects that focus on field issues such as ‘No Trouble Found’, fatigue failures, and other destructive or malfunction events. Projects that win this award will demonstrate:

  • Initial impact of the problem.
  • Creative and effective use of the Shainin Red X tools to uncover the root cause. 
  • Speed and efficiency in resolving the issue.  

Dorian Awards Criteria

Team Project Awards

PLANT MANUFACTURING
PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Manufacturing is a world all its own. With the fast-moving pace, the speed of solving problems matters. The Plant Manufacturing Project of the Year Award recognizes projects that resolve complex problems in ongoing production which impact the end user, company bottom line, production quality rates, and the like. Projects that win this award will demonstrate:

  • Technical difficulty or complexity in resolving the issue.
  • Creative and effective use of the Shainin Red X tools to uncover the root cause.
  • Impact of resolving the problem.
  • How the solution or information discovered was leveraged.
  • Timeline for resolving the issue.

Dorian Awards Criteria

Master of the year Award

The Master of the Year Award is for leaders who have increased the impact of problem solving using Shainin technologies within their organization.

To be considered for this award, the submission must meet the following criteria:

  • Applies leadership skills to expand the impact of Shainin technologies within the organization
  • Results include projects completed that made a significant impact to improving business performance
  • The number of individuals coached to certification

Dorian Awards Criteria

RT5 Leadership Award

The Rolling Top 5 Leadership Award is for leaders who have increased the impact of problem solving using Shainin technologies within their organization.

To be considered for this award, the submission must meet the following criteria:

  • Demonstrates leadership guidance, structural framework, and effective mentoring of a dynamic problem-solving culture
  • Conducts regular reviews to ensure that key projects are solved quickly and efficiently
  • Encourages major suppliers and customers to jointly solve problems by using Shainin methods and leveraging the results
  • Actively recognizes and rewards outstanding performance in problem- solving
  • The number of successful projects and certifications

Dorian Awards Criteria

Team Project Awards

This category of awards is for project teams who have demonstrated outstanding application of Shainin methodologies in solving complex problems within their company.

To be considered for this award, the submission must meet the following criteria:

  • Speed and efficiency of the problem solved
  • Technical difficulty and complexity of the problem solved
  • Project impact and leverage across the organization
  • Creative use of Shainin technologies
  • Clarity of the project documentation

Dorian Awards Criteria

Bottomline Improvement Company Award

This category of awards is for companies who have succesfully applied Shainin tools within a facility, division, region, or company and can demonstrate impactful improvements based on that development.

To be considered for this award, the submission must meet the following criteria:

  • Demonstrates impact of Shainin technology greatly improving key business metrics. 
  • Examples include: scrap reduction, yield improvement, throughput, warranty reductions, field failure avoidance, and other technical solutions resulting in savings. 
  • Demonstrates use of project selection tools to identify the “vital few” among the “trivial many” (projects that have impact)
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John Abrahamian

Executive VP - Problem Solving

John Abrahamian is a highly respected problem solver as well as an expert in the field of Lean manufacturing, with a career spanning over three decades. Throughout his career, John has become renowned for his innovative approach to problem-solving and his unwavering dedication to customer satisfaction. 
  
After receiving his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1985, John began his career as a design and development engineer at Pratt & Whitney. It was during this time that his interest in problem-solving first emerged. By 1994, John had become a Continuous Improvement Manager at the company. During his tenure, John led Pratt & Whitney’s efforts in Lean manufacturing and Value Engineering. 
  
In 1990, John began pursuing his MBA in Operations Management, where he was first introduced to the concept of Lean manufacturing, and this influenced the direction of his career. In 1996, he was encouraged by his Pratt & Whitney team to take Shainin Red X training, building on his Lean manufacturing efforts. This training proved to be a turning point in John’s career, igniting his passion for problem-solving and setting him on a path to becoming one of the industry’s most respected experts. 
  
In 1998, John joined Shainin, where he has spent the last 25 years pursuing his passion for problem-solving. During his time here, John has developed innovative approaches to problem-solving, having received a US Patent for a problem-solving method. He also integrated function analysis into Shainin methods, seeding what would ultimately become Resilient Engineering.  
  
Despite his busy schedule, John still finds time to pursue his hobbies, which include golfing, stand-up paddleboarding, and skeet shooting. He especially enjoys traveling with his wife and spending time with family, including his three grandsons. 
  
Having the opportunity to work in a wide variety of industries, experiencing different cultures and meeting new and interesting people gives John the kind of job satisfaction that makes him grateful to be in this field of work. He truly enjoys creating meaningful relationships with his customers and inspiring ordinary engineers to become extraordinary problem solvers. 

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