DUBAL celebrates the 24th Suggestion Scheme Annual Awards

The Scheme was initiated way back in May 1981 to encourage and recognize contributions from DUBAL employees every year.

Award winners of three major programmes - the 'Suggestion Scheme', the 'Safety Champions' and 'Internal Audits of Quality, Safety and Environmental Management Systems' were awarded on March 9, 2005 at Grand Hyatt Dubai.

Over a 1000 employees participated in the awards function, which was also attended by DUBAL's board members, notable guests from various reputed organizations in the region and dignitaries

"Our schemes have grown tremendously over the years in terms of employee participation. The overall employee participation level rose to 93% during 2004. This, in other words, means 93% of eligible employees submitted at least one suggestion during the year. We are proud to say that these awards are presented only after a suggestion is totally implemented at DUBAL," said Mr. Abdulla J. M. Kalban, Chief Operating Officer, DUBAL.

"When the DUBAL Suggestion Scheme was instituted in 1981, our production capacity was 135,000 metric tonnes a year and we awarded a total of 82 suggestions. During 2004, while our production capacity has risen more than five-fold, we awarded 8,064 suggestions under this scheme. This works out to a phenomenal and manifold rise in the number of suggestions we have received every year over the past 24 years. This also clearly manifests the employees' participation rate, their eagerness to submit novel ideas that improves the performance levels within the organisation," said Mr. Abdulla J. M. Kalban.

The audited savings resulting from the Suggestion Scheme exceeded AED4 million during 2004. DUBAL's objective in 2005 is to achieve 9000 awarded suggestions and 95% employee participation.

The DUBAL Scheme has also won accolades in international competitions in the US and the UK over the past few years. Last year, five suggestions from DUBAL were gold finalists among 25 entries in the 'Ideas UK' international competition. The company also won the Best Environmental Award for the third time in a row in the competition held by Employee Involvement Association, USA.

DUBAL's continuous improvement culture is embedded deep at all employee levels. This is because DUBAL's internal audit programme supports quality, health & safety and environment management systems based on ISO standards. DUBAL has already been certified ISO 9001:2000, ISO/TS16949, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 compliant.

"Audit of the ISO systems ensures continual improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of various plant-wide processes. DUBAL builds relationships with critical suppliers and embarks on periodic audits of its systems to obtain confidence of the suppliers' processes and to identify their improvement opportunities," said Mr. Abdulqader Ali.