Emirates Steel, the leading integrated steel producer in the Middle East, organised a ‘Virtual Innovation Week’ event for its employees, customers and suppliers during the first week of March 2021 celebrating innovation across the organisation. This is aligned with the UAE’s efforts to become the most innovative and future-ready nation in the world under the directives of UAE’s wise leadership.

The event was part of its efforts as a world-class steel manufacturer powered by leadership aspiration, knowledge -based creative culture and customer centric mindset.

Emirates Steel’s Virtual Innovation Week witnessed the participation of 16 leaders and innovators and hosted inspirational webinars by internationally renowned experts. The webinars discussed topics such as innovation cycles, steel industry virtual simulation, hydrogen applications, metal 3D printing, purposeful innovation, digitalization, future business models and AI applications, among others.

During his opening remarks, Engineer Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, CEO of Emirates Steel, said: “At Emirates Steel, we believe that innovation is the base of survival. We are passionate about new ideas and solutions. Our flagship platform, ThinkSmart, continues to be one of our most consistent programmes available, as we received over 1200 new ideas from our staff since inception. Of those inspiring ideas, the ones implemented has generated savings of AED 88 million, of which AED 40 million in 2020 alone. In 2020, we became the first steel manufacturer in the world and the first industrial company in the UAE to receive ISO 56002 in Innovation Management.”

“In July 2020, Emirates Steel Scientific Committee was formed with the aim of instilling a culture of innovation and research across the organisation. Through the committee, we concluded an MoU with Khalifa University of Science and Technology to boost scientific research and development efforts through collaborative research projects,” added Al Remeithi.

Emirates Steel launched the ‘ThinkSmart’ employee suggestion platform in 2018. As part of the initiative, the company established an online platform to enable all employees to share their creative ideas focused on quality and continuous improvement.