Dubai, 27 August 2006: Emirates District Cooling Systems (EMPOWER) today announced the adoption of a new business excellence model during a meeting headed by CEO Ahmad Bin Shafar.  The meeting was attended by senior directors and managers and reflects the district-cooling provider's drive towards a professional, robust and strategic business ethic.

"Empower believes that Total Quality (TQ) is a key element in ensuring its success in attaining the company's global target of being a world class organization and world leader in district cooling services,"  said Bin Shafar.

The Quality Model is based on a totally integrated management system which combines the EFQM model, a framework for assessing organizations for the European Quality Award, in addition to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 18001.  Moreover, Empower is adopting the QHSE model (Quality, Health, Safety and Environment), which consists of EFQM with two more elements of Occupational Health and Environment.

This integrated approach towards business excellence will be integral in the organization's drive to achieve a business ethic that is professional and robust.  Empower's business excellence ultimate goal is to have satisfied customer through committed leadership, strategic planning approach, loyal satisfied employees, commitment towards health, safety and environment, proper documents control, and process oriented business.

"The journey is long and we will not realize our goals without real commitments from Empower's management on every QHSE element - we have made it incumbent on every member in the organization to comply with QHSE requirements," Bin Shafar added.

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EMPOWER
Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower) is a joint venture between Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone (TECOM) Investments and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), created to provide energy-efficient district cooling services to large-scale real estate developments.  Empower plans to diversify into other energy efficiency and conservation services.

Empower's district cooling systems (DCS) provide effective and efficient means of air conditioning.  Water is cooled in central plants and distributed through a network of piping systems to individual customer buildings. DCS achieves economies of scale by using centralised plants instead of individual cooling units in each building. The centralised system results in reduced capital and operating costs, thus reducing air-conditioning set-up and energy costs per building.

Empower's first set of projects have already gone live at Dubai Health Care City (DHCC) and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). With a large pipeline of committed projects under development, Empower is set to become one of the largest district cooling companies in the region.

For more information:
Rami Adwan
Senior PR Executive
JiWin (the Public relations arm of Dubai Press Club)
Tel: 04-361 33 33
Email: rami.adwan@jiwin.ae 

© Press Release 2006