Plant Tour Events 101

Why should you attend a plant tour?

Plant tours offer MAPP members the opportunity to visit other best-in-class manufacturing facilties across the country. Plant tour events allow fellow processors to witness firsthand how others are approaching challenges and find innovative solutions.

Plant tours are one-day events that allow industry leaders to meet and connect in a smaller setting (about 40 - 50 members), sharpen their skills, see another facility's operations up close, and leave with greater focus, new ideas and best practices. These staple events give members the opportunities to form new networking and business connections, as well as find ways to improve their own operations.

After attending their first plant tour with MAPP, one member wrote, "As someone new to MAPP and to the industry in general, I truly appreciated the warm welcome and genuine openness of the participants. Everyone went above and beyond to answer questions, share operational information and offer organizational advice. This was just the resource I hoped to find by attending."

How are MAPP plant tours different?

During MAPP Plant Tours, attendees don't just walk the floor. In small groups of no more than 10, attendees visit different stations throughout the facility. At the various stations, members are able to hear from company employees, ask questions and deep dive into all areas of the organization's operations. Attendees typically visit and learn about the host company's production, engineering, quality, warehouse, maintenance, human resources, sales and leadership. Additionally, attendees are able to benchmark their own operations, network with peers and brainstorm solutions to common business challenges.

During a typical plant tour, the agenda runs from 8:00am - 1:30pm, and includes:

• Breakfast and welcome from MAPP
• Peer networking roundtables on common challenges
• Host company's introduction and overview
• Plant Tour 
  • Small groups (10 or fewer) visiting 5 or more stations throughout the facility
• Working lunch with group discussion
• Final exchange of ideas on areas of improvement and takeaways

At the end of the tour, the host company and each attendee is able to leave with new, ready to implement ideas to improve their operations. 

"What I enjoy most about plant tours is the opportunity to network and search for best practices to bring back to our team. We always identify new information and/or technologies to implement at our own facility."

Visit the MAPP calendar page to register for an upcoming event.

Interested in being a plant tour host? Learn more here.