Sustaining asset performance while managing quality of production with reduced production costs is like keeping your balance while walking on a high-wire. When the market sets the sales price and the shareholders sets the net profit expectations, the only choice left is decreasing production costs. Labor-cost appears to many managers as an easy target when cutting costs. On the contrary, investing in improving the labor qualifications can result in higher efficiency and by default lower costs. The market is pushing organizations who are looking for sustaining or improving profits in this direction, including the steel industry that also faces this challenge. How do organizations select optimum production levels, minimum manpower numbers in order to sustain their productivity and profitability while maintaining a flexibility in following the market demands? The short answer is "do more for less". However, it is not an easy task. The Target is to demonstrate this situation and the analysis that has been done at Rajhisteel, where the results are promising so far. Planning to upgrade the QMS to ISO 9001:2015 will help the organization improve and shift the focus to sustainability and effectiveness.
Ahmed Rezika has over 21 years of maintenance experience in Middle East with leading companies ranging from the steel to the cement industries. He is a certified CMRP, PMP, as well as an accredited consultant electrical engineer by SCE (Saudi Council of Engineers). Ahmed has been with RajhiSteel since 2004, an organization that produces about 20% of the Saudi Arabia reinforcement bars needs, starting from scrap melting process. Previously, he was a maintenance and automation supervisor engineer in ASEC, Sinai Grey Cement project, a company that specializes in EPC and O&M of cement plants. Working to obtain his MMP certification, Ahmed is an electrical engineer and management professional with an extensive experience in heading end-to-end planning, execution and management of electrical maintenance.
