Tuesday 16 / April / 2024
Muscat: Process of evaluating the factories, competing to win the HM Sultan Qaboos Industrial Excellence Award 2015, entered its final stage which is scheduled to be completed at the end of January 2016.
The award has been developed to suit the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s (MOCI) vision that aims at creating a ‘competitive business environment’ for the private sector to contribute effectively in developing the national economy.
The main objective of the award is to recognise the distinguished factories in performance and motivate them to achieve sustainability in improving its performance.
Engineer Khalid bin Homoud bin Hamad Al Hinai, head of the Industrial Monitoring Department at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said: “Seventeen industrial facilities have been visited since the start of the evaluation process. This process continues till date to select the best factories that will have the honour of winning HM Sultan Qaboos Industrial Excellence Award 2015."
"The award constitutes a cumulative development in the management of manufacturing processes. This enables such industrial facilities to improve its situation and productivity. In reality, the industrial sector in the Sultanate is a promising sector. It holds many added value and sustainable development opportunities,” he pointed out.
“The methodology of evaluation provides that the facility should identify the desired results as part of its strategy. It also includes planning and developing an integrated set of approaches for achieving the required current and future objectives. The methodology also involves the deployment of approaches in a systemic manner to ensure the implementation. It includes evaluating and improving the assessment and retirement approaches adopted based on monitoring and analysing the achieved results and the continuous education activities." Al Hinai explained
Hamad bin Nassir Al Farsi, administrative affairs director at Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel and an evaluator at HM Sultan Qaboos Industrial Excellence Award 2015 thanked the MOCI on adopting the idea of evaluating the factories through evaluators from outside the ministry, particularly through employees from the industrial sector.
He indicated that the evaluation process has contributed in promoting the transparency and accuracy in evaluation this year. He explained that such process has also contributed into identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the participating factories.
The companies have also welcomed the request provided by the evaluation team to meet the heads of departments and discuss the aspects related to the evaluation points with them. They also welcomed the requests to meet the employees to ensure the efforts exerted by the management of such companies.
The administrative affairs director at Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel emphasised that outsourcing evaluators from outside the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is one of the most important positive steps taken by the Ministry to develop the evaluation programme.
Dr Muhannad Abdul Rahim Al Obaidi, vice dean for Academic Affairs and Scientific Research at the Gulf College and an evaluator for HM Sultan Qaboos Industrial Excellence Award 2015 said: "The workshop for qualifying the evaluators has greatly contributed into qualifying and preparing the evaluation committees particularly in light of the fact that the evaluators have various practical and academic experiences."
"The lecturer has explained the basic standards applicable in the evaluation process and the important points that should be taken into consideration with regard to the industrial management and the quality of production. Real examples have also been addressed during the workshop. In addition, a hypothetical evaluation has been made for a company. This evaluation has contributed into providing an ability at the participants to conduct the evaluation process in a standard way," he added.
"From an academic point of view, I see that the standards adopted during the evaluation process are detailed standards derived from well-known international systems." Dr Al Obaidi stated.
