Confab to be held on 29-30 May

KUWAIT CITY, May 22: The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) will be participating at the Kuwait Six Sigma 'A Breakthrough Strategy for Performance Excellence' conference. The conference will be held in the Crown Plaza hotel in Kuwait on the 29th to the 30th of May 2011.

Dow executives will be at the core of the event, joining their industry peers in discussions on superior business management strategy. Kevin McCarron, the Six Sigma Service Leader for Dow, will be giving a key note speech, presenting "Driving Business Success: Lessons Learned from Dow's Six Sigma Journey".

The presentation will provide highlights of Dow's process capability deployment at various stages and thought provoking insight to be considered at each stage. There will also be a round-table panel discussion in which the speakers will present another round of short presentations.

"Competitiveness, profitability and quality are elements that are vital to the success of a business. Six Sigma is a methodology, tool set, and mindset that accelerates the implementation of business strategies, contributing greatly to business success, and increasing a company's rate of improvement in quality and productivity." said Kevin McCarron, Six Sigma Service Leader for Dow. "We are excited to be part of the Kuwait Six Sigma event, to share our strategies and success stories, and discover how other companies have applied their unique approaches."

Dow is applying Six Sigma in order to improve current operations and develop innovative new solutions. An important aspect of Dow's commitment is a focus on applying the power of Six Sigma to increase customer satisfaction to establish an unprecedented level of customer loyalty. The desired outcome is unparalleled business excellence.

"At Dow, our business processes have always been in alignment with the Six Sigma's principles. Minimizing waste, delivering high quality products and ensuring customer satisfaction are only a few of the elements that shape our company," said Jamel Attal, Managing Director, Kuwait. "We believe in this program and are happy to see this conference taking place in Kuwait and to be able to share our experience and expertise in such a forum."

Meanwhile, the Dow Chemical Company achieved sales of $14.7bn in the first quarter of 2011, a 20 percent increase compared with the same period last year. Top-line growth was driven by an 8 percent increase in volume and a 12 percent increase in price. All operating segments and geographic areas reported double-digit sales increases.

Reported earnings for the quarter were $0.54 per share, compared with $0.41 per share in the same period last year. The Company earned $0.82 per share in the quarter, excluding certain items. This compares with earnings of $0.43 per share in the same quarter last year, excluding certain items.
Certain items in the current quarter consisted of a loss on the early extinguishment of debt of $0.26 per share, and Rohm and Haas acquisition-related integration costs of $0.02 per share, both reflected in Corporate.

At a Company level, EBITDA rose $622m, or 34 percent, to $2.4bn. This represents the second highest quarterly EBITDA on record for the Company. Performance Products and Chemicals and Energy each posted EBITDA increases in excess of 50 percent, and Coatings and Infrastructure EBITDA increased more than 30 percent. Health and Agricultural Sciences EBITDA reached a new quarterly record of $406m and Plastics EBITDA exceeded $800m.

Equity earnings were $298m, led by strong performance from Dow Corning, MEGlobal and the Company's joint ventures in Kuwait.

Coatings and Infrastructure sales were $1.4bn, up 16 percent compared with the same period last year. Volume rose 3 percent versus the year-ago period, and price was up 13 percent. Volume gains were reported in Dow Adhesives and Functional Polymers and Dow Building and Construction, while volume fell slightly in Dow Coating Materials due to soft demand from architectural end-markets in developed regions and constrained supply for industrial coatings raw materials.

© Arab Times 2011