The key belief that may lead us to greater competitiveness is that processes produce output, and hence if we want better or more output then we must improve and change processes continually.  Well conceived process improvement effort is accomplishment driven, creates value and aims to satisfy both internal and external customers.  It is this belief that led us to the introduction of a number of process and quality improvement initiatives at Zamil Steel in the last few years.  It is now almost one year since we formed Zamil Steel Quality Council with representatives from all business units, for the purpose of taking our process improvement (PI) and quality initiatives further ahead in order to achieve recurring cost benefits to the company and our valued customers.

Zamil Steel celebrated its 1^st Annual Quality Day on the 9^th of November, which was also an occasion to felicitate the winning teams.  In total 9 process improvement teams competed at divisional level for GM’s Quality Excellence Award.  Award winning projects from business units (GM’s award winners) were evaluated by the Quality Council for ranking them on the basis of total savings to the company for President’s Quality Excellence Awards.  The PI team from Process Equipment Division (Mukundan Vikkath, Ashok Kumar, Panner Selvam, Sheikh Awes, Jantaya, and Lito) won this year’s President’s Award, with the PI teams from PEB-GCC and ZS Egypt becoming the 1^st and 2^nd runner-up respectively.  We congratulate all the teams for their valuable contribution.

The award winning PED project titled “Non Destructive Examination (NDE) of weld joints in process equipment” involved identifying and implementing a technique or combination of techniques that can be used as a replacement for radiographic test.  The new techniques developed by the team with help from an NDE contractor has resulted in immediate cost savings to the tune of SR 3.9 million per annum with scope for further improvement.

Examining a process in detail and by constantly being at it results in unraveling of opportunities so far not seen.  There is no limit to improvement.  Constant seeking of new knowledge will always throw up opportunities. Zamil Steel has a vast pool of talented employees, who have demonstrated time and again their unlimited potential for creativity and innovative thinking.

Successful implantation of quality initiatives requires a supportive culture.  The ingredient of such culture include shared values and beliefs, trust and mutual respect, empowered employees and an attitude favoring continuous improvement.  Therefore, leadership and participation of you all managers and supervisors is very much vital.  Your complete involvement with the team members to accept the ideas of the group, displaying tenacity and patience while the goals are approaching, and appropriately coaching, developing, and encouraging the team members is very important.

I encourage all of you to go through the PI project presentations that are available on our Intranet Portal under ZSI Quality Council (http://dmmfsmktzs/zsqc/) as I am confident that these success stories will encourage people across the organization to volunteer to envision and undertake projects for higher revenues and lower costs.

Let’s now look at our performance in November:

Building Products Group achieved a total production of 17,314 MT and shipped a total tonnage of 20,195 MT.

Industrial Steel Products Group produced a total of 9,689 MT and their shipments during the month were 9,452 MT.

“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing… layout, processes, and procedures.”  Tom Peters

By Adnan AlMansour
  Dem 7, 2010