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January 22, 2007
Alcoa WA Operations Annual Awards for Excellence
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Employee suggestions have been reborn as a powerful 21st century employee engagement tool at Alcoa’s WA Operations where smart ideas from the shopfloor are delivering substantial savings and safety, environmental and efficiency improvements.
The power of the employee suggestion scheme was highlighted at the Alcoa WA Operations Annual Awards for Excellence. (Saturday January 20)
Two of the suggestions nominated for the awards are delivering savings estimated at $320,000 a year by improving energy efficiency and resource usage.
“We introduced the suggestion scheme to engage and empower employees to put forward their ideas for improving the business,” said Alcoa Vice President Operations Australia-Asia, Raphael Costa.
“And the scheme has worked very well, not just in the number of suggestions but more importantly their impact in improving safety, environmental performance and manufacturing efficiencies.
“In many cases, we’ve seen simple solutions deliver major safety benefits. For example, the winners of the Best Employee Suggestion Award developed a tool that removes stored energy from gearboxes after they are electrically isolated for maintenance. It’s a very simple tool but the safety benefit is significant.
“The employee suggestion scheme and the Awards for Excellence share the same philosophy; that it’s people who make our business successful, not machines and technology,” said Mr Costa.
“We achieved great results in 2006 with record production and major improvements in safety and environmental management, and the people that we’re honouring in these awards have all made outstanding contributions to our performance in the last year,” said Mr Costa.
Awards were also presented for excellence in improving safety and environmental performance, people development, business improvement and community involvement.
The Kwinana alumina refinery was named as Alcoa’s Highest Performing Location in WA, achieving the best overall performance in production, safety, environmental management, costs and quality.
Alcoa’s WA refineries increased production by 5.5% in 2006, producing 8.5 million tonnes of alumina.
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