New York— Shaw Industries’ move to a full-service flooring provider in recent years has paid off, as the mill won the coveted Best Overall Manufacturer title in the 11th Award of Excellence competition. The company also took top honors for the third year in a row in the Area Rug category.

Sponsored by Floor Covering News and the World Floor Covering Association ( WFCA), the Award of Excellence is a way for manufacturers’ customers—retailers, distributors, designers, installers, specifies, etc.—to honor the companies they feel consistently provide the best service, professionalism of sales force, management responsiveness, value, design, B2B, handling claims and ease of doing business. In other words, which manufacturers they feel help them the best in running successful, profitable business operations, whether it be a retail operation, a distributorship, a design center, or an installation workroom.

To receive the Best Overall honor, readers of FCNews, members of the WFCA as well as any other industry personnel not employed by a manufacturer voted for the companies they felt best met the previously mentioned criteria in the six individual floor covering categories—Carpet, Area Rugs, Resilient, Hardwood, Ceramic and Laminate—as well as the top overall mill.

Voting for this year’s awards was different than previous years as FCNews and the WFCA revamped the process to better reflect changes within the industry. This is nothing new, as noted by Matthew Spieler, FCNews’ senior executive editor. “We recognized that since launching the Award of Excellence in October of 1996 the industry has drastically changed at all levels and in many ways. And, as the industry has changed, so too has the Award of Excellence as we’ve continually strived to ensure a system to better reflect how today’s industry looks and operates.”

The changes recognize the industry has become polarized in many ways, especially at the manufacturing level where some companies’ sales in certain categories are so huge that they do in one week what it takes others to do in an entire year.

“This is not to denigrate the smaller mills,” Spieler said, “as many produce products and provide services that in some cases outdo their larger counterparts. The problem is, they tend to get lost in the shuffle when thinking of the industry as a whole.”

So as a way to recognize them, the six floor covering categories were divided into Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’. The only category not to be divided was rugs.

And the winners are…

As noted, Shaw took both the Best Overall and Best Area Rug honors. The other winners for 2007 were:

Carpet - Group A: Mohawk Industries; Group B: Milliken Carpet.

Resilient - Group A: Mannington Mills; Group B: Karndean International.

Laminate - Group A: Wilsonart Flooring; Group B: Alloc.

Ceramic - Group A: Dal-Tile; Group B: Crossville.

Hardwood - Group A: Armstrong/Bruce/Robbins; Group B: Mirage Prefinished Hardwood Flooring.

Voting for the Best Manufacturers in 12th Award of Excellence began in October.