EMAL wins top honours at prestigious international innovation awards

Abu Dhabi: On its first attempt to achieve Platinum certification, Emirates Aluminium, EMAL, has received the Ideas UK top award for its highly successful Suggestion Scheme programme, one of the company's key pillars of operational excellence. The Platinum category is the highest level of classification within the British Association, recognising the support, guidance and involvement of EMAL to establish a culture of innovation and facilitate an atmosphere of creativity. With only three UAE companies achieving the maximum award in the first trial to date, EMAL is the youngest UAE organisation to be accredited, and one of only five Emirati companies to receive the award in 2013. EMAL President and CEO, Saeed Fadhel Al Mazrooei, said, "At EMAL we are dedicated to excellence and we relentlessly motivate our employees for their participation and interaction with the Suggestion System, following one of the company's core values: everything can be improved." "The EMAL workforce has cultivated a culture of continuous improvement, largely through an active employee Suggestion Scheme that facilitates improvements and recognises contributors. We have a participation rate of over 80% of our workforce, with 17,600 employee suggestions submitted since July 2010. Testament to the success of the programme is the fact that more than 60% of suggestions were implemented successfully at EMAL," added Mazrooei. Ideas UK is a non-profit organisation that is concerned with enhancing and supporting employees' initiatives worldwide and works on motivating its member states, providing them with the latest suggestions systems and opportunities to exchange expertise and knowledge with various international public and private entities. To achieve Platinum Accreditation, EMAL was required to score over 90% in accordance with 80 questions and a detailed assessment of the organisation carried out by representatives from Ideas UK. The assessment includes questions regarding the competency of the system as well as other legislative and financial facets. The Accreditation Certificate is scheduled to be extended to Emirates Aluminium during the international Ideas UK 2013 conference, slated to be held November 13th-14th in Cardiff, Wales. – Emirates News Agency, WAM