#UAEinnovators: Consistent trial and error attempts helped establish Emirates Global Aluminium’s edge in technology

Thirty years after the UAE's first aluminium smelter was built in the desert, Emirates Global Aluminium is continuing its innovative path by creating and patenting its own technology to export to other parts of the world.

Abdalla Alzarooni, the vice president, technology development and transfer for EGA, says innovation is key to ​keeping the firm competitive. Victor Besa for The National

In the mid-1970s, work to create the UAE’s first aluminium smelter began in the Jebel Ali desert, using technology from the US. Since then the company – now known as Emirates Global Aluminium after the 2013 merger between Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium – has expanded using technology it has developed itself.

Today the Al Taweelah facility is one of the world’s largest single-site primary aluminium smelters. And EGA has almost single-handedly made the UAE into the fourth largest producing country in the world.

“Innovation has been key, right from the start of the business,” says Abdalla Alzarooni, vice president, technology development and transfer for EGA. “And it has taken several forms. I mean the old-fashioned way of trial and error, doing trials on the ground and seeing what kind of results you find, and then moving on to a technical partnership with a company.”

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About 25 years ago, EGA created a special team dedicated to developing technology in-house, which it did very successfully. But more recently it has looked at licensing its technology in the industry, starting by filing patents as opposed to operating with the trade secrets it used to before. Since then it has applied for more than 20 patents. The company recently licensed its first technology internationally to Aluminium Bahrain for the core smelting process it is using in its line six expansion project.

“They went out to the market. We had a lot of competition from companies that have been in the business of selling technology for more than 40 years. This is a [source of] great pride to have an Emirati product that has been successfully [licensed] internationally,” says Mahmood Abdulmalik, a senior manager in the technology development and transfer department.

It has also developed two new patents in its drive to produce aluminium of a higher purity and lower carbon footprint.

“The aluminium market is a very fluctuating market,” says Mr Abdulmalik. “And if we didn’t innovate we would not be able to compete. This is extremely important. I have seen many chief executives during the past 17 years at the company and this has never changed. [They say] ‘we have to innovate, we have to innovate, we have to innovate’. If we don’t innovate with the market conditions I don’t think we could sustain the business at all.”

Amid a persistent supply glut, there are signs that demand is increasing. The price of aluminium traded in London has gained about 15 per cent so far this year after dropping 19 per cent last year.

EGA has the second longest heritage of any company outside oil and gas after Etisalat, and employs about 7,000 people. The broader industry, which includes 20 companies which operate downstream making products from aluminium, provides almost 30,000 jobs.

It contributes about US$5 billion to the UAE’s GDP, which is about 1.2 per cent of the total, according to EGA.

The 2013 merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium was at the time the largest outside the banking industry in the Emirates.

New employees are introduced to EGA’s innovation culture at the outset and encouraged to keep refining their ideas. Emirati Nadia Ahli, 32, is an associate manager in technology transfer, and when she joined as a graduate trainee in 2008 she was told nothing is impossible to implement.

“There is always an alternative way to figure it out, how to optimise it one way or another,” she says. “My manager said you should always look at it from the bigger picture. How you can optimise it from other areas. Or combine all of these areas.”

Today she acts in the same role as that manager once did, encouraging and inspiring her employees to innovate.

“I always try to have brainstorming sessions where they can throw all their ideas on the table,” she says. “And then we see the validity of these ideas, whether they can be implemented, check whether there is any conflict with energy or other teams. And I create a healthy environment. All ideas are welcome. There is nothing like a small idea or a silly idea.”

EGA also operates a Centre of Excellence research centre and knowledge bank, which includes an online electronic book library accessible to all employees. And there is a suggestions system in place to capture ideas and innovations from everyone in the company – a concept EGA says has saved it millions of dirhams.

The company also runs programmes with universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Students from the chemical engineering department are currently working on the ground with EGA staff.

“They are working on site and being supervised by MIT and our Centre of Excellence personnel, working hand-in-hand with the operations on specific projects that will hopefully add a great value to the company. This is the second year we have run such a programme with an international institute like MIT. Last year one of the projects [that relates to energy saving] led to an annual saving of more than $1m,” says Mr Alzarooni.

“On the economic side, if we don’t have our own technology it means we have to buy technology for expansion [which would make us less successful].”

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