DUBAL achieves 100 per cent participation in employee suggestion scheme

As a result of this, DUBAL was able to implement almost 8,000 suggestions which generated audited savings worth almost AED 5 million during 2006. Over the past 26 years, the aluminium giant was able to achieve cumulative savings of almost AED 54 million because of the Employee Suggestion Scheme.

In order to felicitate the employees and present the awards to winning entries in the DUBAL Annual Suggestion Scheme competition, a gala dinner was organized at the Grand Hyatt Dubai on March 28, 2007. The function was attended by His Excellency Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer, Vice-Chairman of DUBAL, members of the board of directors, senior management team, dignitaries and employees of the company.

DUBAL has organized a grand celebration at the Dubai Grand Hyatt Hotel on 28th March, 2007, on behalf of suggestion scheme winners and, gifts were given.

The celebration was attended by H.E. Mohammed Abdulla Al Ghurair, Dubal's board member and other board members, Senior Management, VIP's and DUBAL's employees.

In his speech addressed to 1300 employees, H.E. Mohammed Al Ghurair stressed the importance of continuing the drive towards achieving excellence which eventually attains positive results for the company.

On behalf of all the board of directors, Mr. Al Ghurair expressed gratitude and congratulated the winners.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Abdulla Kalban, Chief Executive Officer, DUBAL lavished immense praise on the employees for the tremendous success of the scheme. Mr. Kalban said: "We knew all our employees are capable of executing some improvement at their work, which has been proved now. These ideas make our processes more efficient and in the long run, benefit DUBAL and employees themselves. It's a win-win situation."
The award categories included; Best Suggestors and Lady Suggestor, Best Supervisors and Lady Supervisor, Areas for 100% employee participation, Best Quality Suggestion, Best Environmental Suggestion, Best Plant Operational Security Suggestion, Best Safety Suggestion, Best Energy Savings Suggestion and Best Suggestion.

Mr. Kalban, congratulated the winners for their dedication and said: "The cumulative savings achieved over the past 26 years is almost AED 54 million, a testimony that small ideas are of immense value to the business."

The Gold winner 2006 in the Best Suggestion category was M. Y. Malik of Potline-5 for his entry titled "Additional auto dumps while anode setting". In the Safety Suggestion category there were four joint winners - K. John of the Central Maintenance Services for his entry titled "Hydraulic puller for removing trunion pin in metal cruce" while G. S. Murthy, K. P. Balakrishnan and J. G. Rocaberte of the Potroom Maintenance section for their entry "Motorised cross travel for Anode Jacking Frame".

In the Plant Operational Security category the winning entry was "Standby rectifier #1 to connect with Poltine #4"from M. S. Ali of P&D EMD section, while the Quality category award went to B. Repolido and R. Caligula of Casthouse 1 for their entry titled "Resizing of anode bar tundish."

K. P. Balakrishnan and R. N. Sotaso of the Potroom Maintenance section won the award in Environmental category for their entry titled "Environmental-friendly rotary feeder with modified sealing" while A. S. Jamshed and O. C. Thomas Jacob of Desal Operations won the award for their entry "Avoid forced outage of evaporators" in the Energy Saving category.

"Changes are being initiated to the suggestion scheme to ensure a smoother process and reduce the turnaround time of suggestions. We hope this will benefit the suggestors and hence DUBAL," Mr. Ibrahim Nassir, General Manager, Human Resources and Organization Effectiveness, DUBAL, remarked.

"Our scheme has been successful due to its simplicity and a constant dynamism from all involved to better the results of previous years. The scheme has also been presented in conferences in the US and the UK and has been widely appreciated by the industry leaders," added Mr. Nassir.

The suggestion scheme is a self sustaining program at DUBAL for many years and in 2006 the savings ratio was 1:4, i.e. for each dollar spent on the scheme, the company was able to generate savings of USD4.