A Saudi ceramics company that has progressed from wholesale operations to manufacturing has visions of becoming a top player in the field, having already laid a sturdy infrastructure through technical collaborations with leading European firms. Al Jawdah Ceramics Company has completed four and a half years in production and is now in the process of expanding.
The expansion at the company's factory at the Third Industrial City, 40km from Riyadh Main City, is designed to create a production capacity of 4.5 to 5 million sq m of wall and floor tiles in the beginning of 2002, said president Abdul Rahman Saleh Al Omran. Output in 2000 was 3.5 million sq m, an increase of half a million sq m over the previous year. The company is well on track to overtake last year's production having already reached 2 million sq m in the first half.
Al Jawdah manufactures ceramic wall and floor tiles through the "single firing" technology and 'listellos' through the "third firing" process. "Our tiles are manufactured by using Italian technology, knowhow and machines (from Sacmi) so they are top of the world," said Abdul Rahman. There have been other collaborators as well and the company lists them as Cimes, Omis, Clas, Ceramic Instrument, Assoprint, Studio and Maer (Italy), Colorobbia (Italy and Spain) and Esmaltes (Spain).
Al Jawdah Ceramic was established when entrepreneurs Abdul Rahman and Abdul Kareem Saleh Al Omran decided to venture into manufacturing after 20 years' experience as wholesalers and distributors of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware and accessories in Saudi Arabia. Full-scale production began in February 1997. The company is part of the Al Jawdah Industrial Complex established by Abdul Rahman and Abdul Kareem Saleh Al Omran and comprises also the manufacturing firms Al Jawdah Company for Plastic Pipes and Fittings and Al Jawdah Company for Electrical Water Heaters.
"The factory is considered one of the most modern in the Middle East...We work exclusively with red clay unlike the majority of Italian manufacturers who use while clay; our products are similar in quality to those offered by European companies," said Abdul Rahman.
The company follows the European quality standards EN 1178 11A 1993, EN122, EN 159 and BS 6431 as well as the Kingdom's Saso standards. The production process has the ISO 9002 company quality certification from TUV, Germany, which Abdul Rahman said was an important recognition for Al Jawdah Ceramics as it "places great importance on its image and the image of its products".
"We have everything that's needed to control the quality of our tiles - instruments such as autoclaves, the dilatometer and the abrasive meter. We also have the laboratory press, dryer, kiln for body testing and an exclusive laboratory to develop models," added Abdul Rahman.
The company's tile sizes (centimetres) are: wall tiles 20 x 20, 20 x 30, 25 x 36.5, 25 x 40 and 31.6 x 44; floor tiles 20 x 20, 25 x 25, 31.6 x 31.6 and 40 x 40. The "third firing" plant for 'listellos' and decorative pieces was introduced to complement the company's range of floor and wall tiles, giving customers a wider choice. Under this process, the company launched "bull nose listellos" and ceramic skirting in the following sizes (centimetres): wall tiles 10 x 10; wall special pieces 7 x 20, 10 x 25, 10 x 31, 5 x 25, 5 x 31, 8.7 x 25 and 8.7 x 20; floor tiles 8 x 40, 8 x 31.6 (ceramic skirting).
The company's products are distributed all over Saudi Arabia by Abdul Rahman & Abdul Kareem Saleh Al Omran for Sanitary Ware Company, which recently established branches in Dammam, Jeddah and Al Qassim and appointed sub-distributors in other regions of the Kingdom. It has established two big showrooms, one at Al Takhassusi Street and the other at Prince Abdullah Road in Riyadh.
The other two manufacturing companies in the group - Al Jawdah Company for Plastic Pipes and Fittings and Al Jawdah Company for Electrical Water Heaters - were also started in the 1990s.
The plastic pipes company was established in 1994 to produce UPVC pipes and fittings for transporting water with a capacity of 10,000 tonnes of PVC annually. Since then production has reached 24,000 tonnes of PVC for pipes, 800 tonnes of CPVC and 2000 tonnes of PVC pipe fittings. Equipment includes a computerised mixing plant for PVC dry blend and an automatic transferring system along with sophisticated extruders and injection-moulding machines. The company has an in-house laboratory. Thirty per cent of the production is exported to the Arab world.
Al Jawdah Company for Electrical Water Heaters, one of the most modern plants of its kind in the Middle East, began production at the beginning of 1999 with machinery supplied by an Italian company. The company produces vertical and horizontal models for domestic heaters of sizes 30 litres to 100 litres.
Quality control equipment it uses includes the AEA electrical safety tester for testing electrical strength, insulation resistance, leakage current and earth connection and power absorption.
The company also has the digital coating thickness gauge for checking the thickness of powder and enamel (glasslined) coating and the conductivity measurement device. Some 350 boilers are produced daily, a figure that is to expand to 900 to 1,000 in the second phase.
Earlier this year, Al Jawdah Company for Electrical Water Heaters was awarded the ISO 9002 certification by TUV, Germany. Two months later, the Saudi Arabian Standards Organisation awarded it its own quality mark.
