Some 147 years ago, Milliken & Co. was selling woolen goods manufactured in New England; it soon expanded to represent the cotton mills of the southern United States. With a passion to be not the biggest but the best, the Milliken family led the company through the turbulent 1980s when imported textiles flooded U.S. markets and through the 1990s when the company had eight U.S. textile competitors doing more than $1 billion in business each year. Today, those competitors are gone; Milliken is the last man standing. One of the keys to its success: a strong foundation built on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence.

Craig Long, the vice president and general director of Miliken’s “Performance Solutions,” says the question he gets most often is, “How did you do it?” He said the answer has three parts:
1. Positioning in the right market
2. A commitment to innovation and value-added products
3. A commitment to operational excellence

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