UAE-based Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), a leading aluminium producer in the Middle East, said that it was recently honoured with four awards at the 2016 Quality Group Continual Improvement and Innovation Symposium, held in Dubai, UAE.

The annual awards recognise the use of innovative, scientific, structured and data-driven methodologies for the continual and breakthrough improvements of an organisation’s processes.

EGA swept the Kaizen category – named after the Japanese practice of continual improvement in business – by winning gold, silver and bronze awards for its unique process innovations and contributions to the aluminium industry, said a statement from the company.

The company’s winning entries at the event included:
1. Kaizen Category
•Gold Award – Reducing the process time of crust breaker overhauling, Jebel Ali plant.
•Silver Award – Reducing coke pre-heater screw assembling time and cost by 50 per cent, Jebel Ali plant.
•Bronze Award – Recovering energy from Phase II heat recovery steam generators, Al Taweelah plant.

2. Innovation Category
•Bronze Award – Steam Turbine 14 auxiliaries standby feeder from substation 426, during transformer and motor control centre replacement (without shutdown), Jebel Ali plant.

EGA has focused on technology development for decades, continuously improving its core aluminium smelting process, it said.

The company has applied its own in-house developed technology for each of its expansions since the 1990s. Earlier this year, EGA also became the first UAE industrial company to licence its own large-scale industrial technology internationally, in a deal with Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), it added.

EGA’s smelting innovations have enabled the company to reach global top quartile performance in cost, efficiency and environmental responsibility according to independent industry benchmarks.

For example, EGA’s latest technology, DX+ Ultra, has more than double the pot productivity of the company’s original D18 technology and the energy consumed in its smelting process is amongst the lowest in the industry, said a statement.

Abdulla Kalban, managing director and CEO of EGA, said: “Innovation is part of our company’s DNA – we continually improve our technology stay ahead of our competition in the global aluminium industry.”

“The results of innovation are customer orders and financial success, but it is great to also be recognised by Dubai Quality Group in this way,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service