Innovative concept has won four awards in less than two years.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Dubai Aluminium Company ("DUBAL") -- the innovation-driven enterprise which owns and operates one of the world's largest single-site smelters -- has received further international recognition, thanks to one of the ideas submitted by its employees winning the International Award in the 2010 Ideas.UK Idea of the Year Competition, held recently in Cardiff, United Kingdom. There were 35 short-listed suggestions in the competition and DUBAL had seven suggestions in the final round. Some of the companies who participated in the competition were Siemens, British Telecom; Cyprus Telecom; Ricoh; Diageo; Lloyds TSB; Ministry of Defence, UK; DEWA; and Dubai Customs.
Moreover, the winning suggestion -- entitled "Fabricate efficient multiple-use table pre-heater" and submitted by Sadiq Basha, B C Rao and Mohammad Asi -- has the distinction of winning three awards in other competitions, namely the Silver Award in the Innovation and Technology category of the 2009 DUBAL Suggestion Scheme Annual Competition; the Technology Award in the 2010 Ideas.Arabia Competition in April 2010; and the Team Idea of the Year Award in the Employee Involvement Association, USA competition in September 2010.
The suggestion relates to pre-heating the casting table prior to casting, so as to produce quality aluminium billets safely. The original pre-heater supplied by the supplier has resulted in casting delay, gas leaks, frequent break downs, and so forth. The suggestors came up with the brilliant notion of designing an efficient new pre-heater in-house, with extension attachments to suit multiple casting tables. Their innovation prevents frequent damages, increases the life of the refractory, reduces gas consumption, increases efficiency, occupies less space, eliminates unsafe conditions and reduces the pre-heat time by 40 per cent.
Said Saleh Janeeh (Senior Manager: Quality Assurance & Business Excellence and Chairman: DUBAL Suggestion Scheme), "The ability to adapt and improve key processes and outputs is a vital aspect of organisational success. Creativity and innovation have a significant role to play in ensuring this and employee involvement schemes are one way of obtaining input and ideas from people. DUBAL recognises the important role that employees can play in improving its business performance through innovation. In today's corporate environment, organisations must work towards engaging employees strongly enough to achieve its objectives."
Employee involvement at DUBAL dates back to 1981, when the company began tapping into the creative and innovative capability of its workforce in a quest for continuous improvement. By contributing ideas, employees help DUBAL improve its performance and meet its goals more effectively, while at the same time improving their own performances. In the past 29 years, the DUBAL Suggestion Scheme has enabled phenomenal growth and brought accolades in international forums for the company.
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© Press Release 2010
