Talk:Plant Engineering

annual product awards

It could be mentioned in this article that the magazine has been running an annual new product awards program for 26 years, apparently. Recipients of the awards may tout them as being "prestigious" or whatever. But as far as I can tell there is no independent coverage of the awards as being significant. At a current AFD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ramsay Corporation, I argue that a recipient of the awards is not notable for having received them. And I did some digging about the awards, finding:

• the awards are voted by subscribers to the magazine, not selected by any panel of experts who evaluate all new products nominated
• products are self-nominated by manufacturers who pay a $495 fee and provide some documentation that the product or upgrade to product is new during the given year. Award program staff might possibly disqualify a nomination, but there's no reason to believe that any evaluation of product quality is performed before they announce "finalists", which subscribers can vote on.
• The program is a revenue source for the magazine, and the fees collected may effectively just be advertising payments. In 2014 the ballot shows 14 categories, with 96 "finalists" (3, 7, 7, 9, 8, 6, 14, 8, 9, 2, 9, 2, 3, and 9). At $495 each, that is about $500 x 100 = $50,000. I don't see how administering the program could cost that much. The program also generates material to fill pages: the finalists get described in an issue, and the winners are announced in another issue with more description presumably.
• about Grand Award: In 2007 Ramsay Corporation was the winner of the overall "Grand Award", which was for receiving the most votes of any product in any of about a dozen categories. However it appears to me that it had either the only nomination in an unnamed category, or one of only two in "Training/Education Products" category, while every other category had 3 or more nominees, so it would not be surprising for it to get more votes than any other product (as votes in all other categories would be split across more options). So the "Grand Award" may not be significant.
• about getting Gold, Silver, Bronze in any category: in 2014 there are just 2 or 3 candidates in 4 of the 14 categories, and the average number of candidates per category is less than 7. So it's not terribly impressive to win Gold, Silver, or Bronze. In the announcements of winners, there is no disclosure of the number of candidates. I can see the candidates listed on the 2014 ballot only because the voting is going on, at [http://www.plantengineering.com/events-and-awards/product-of-the-year/2014/2014-product-of-the-year-finalists.html, and there is no security preventing me or anyone else from coming in and voting (though maybe there is security that would discard my vote).
• Some past winners of awards proclaim their winning (e.g. this CooperIndustries webpage describing the awards as "prestigious" and listing their receipt of awards in 3 categories in 2013) but that is not independent.

So the award program itself could possibly be mentioned in this wikipedia Plant Engineering article, as one of its regular features, but I believe there's no use in listing winners, and I would tend to oppose any mention of this award elsewhere, like in the article of any firm receiving one of these awards. A win seems insignificant and not a testimonial of merit about a product or about any winning company. My view could change if there was independent documentation of the importance/value of these awards, but in quick searching I find none. --doncram 23:23, 1 January 2015 (UTC)