Since SMI was established, the reliance on ferrous and non-ferrous casting suppliers was an issue.  These castings were the main supply components to its product lines, particularly Pumps and Gear Drives. 

The vast investment in machining, assembly and testing could no longer rely on sourcing from local or overseas foundries.  Typical issues of quality, deliveries and price fluctuation caused undesirable disruptions. 

It is to such concerns as well as long term commitments, SMI took a strategic decision to build and commission a non-ferrous foundry during 2008.  During the same year, SMI acquired a 28,000M2 site with a small foundry and spent two years in major renovations and expansion to produce ferrous castings.

The prime objective was for SMI to secure all its casting requirements.  An achievement reached by utilising all SMI’s resources and experience as well as a substantial financial investment.

The introduction of a new skilled team headed by Chris Allott allowed the foundry to gradually increase production from less than 100 MT per month in early 2009 to current production in excess of 500 MT per month.

This achievement was the result of investing in new equipment; in particular, furnaces, moulding line, core machines, shot blasting and finishing facility, chemicals cold store, pattern shop, the latest equipment in laboratory and testing as well as infrastructure upgrades.

Chris Allott, with more than 40 years in foundry operations management in the UK, joined SMI as foundry manager in April 2009 and was tasked with multiple roles involving training of manpower, establishing foundry process control procedures, commissioning of new machineries as well as making sure that production targets are improved on a month by month basis.

Today, Chris celebrates with his dedicated team, the trophy of excellence and achievement within twelve months.  “I was very fortunate to have such a challenging and rewarding opportunity after all my experience in the UK foundry industry.  I was watching, with joy, my young enthusiastic team at SMI growing better every day.  We reported increased monthly production for the last twelve months as well as reduced the scrap rate”.

“I am a strong believer in KPIs.  My first task when I joined SMI was to introduce metrics and score cards in almost all areas within the foundry.  Results were consequently discussed in our daily production meetings with all the responsible staff.  This helped to establish where we are and hence set the targets to where we needed to be by everyone in the team”, said Allott. 

“Improvements from that point of view were always spectacular.  Our monthly production increased from 70 Metric Tons to 400 Tons within 12 months.  Our scrap rate was reduced from 8 per cent to less than 1 per cent and down time, which was running at 13 per cent was slashed to 1 per cent on a regular basis,” added Allott. 

All these developments and challenges will continue as SMI foundry targets 1000 Tons monthly production in 2011.  This can only be achieved by using a disciplined approach to managing the business via, performance measuring, planning and regular dialogue at all levels of operations within the foundry.

Despite his focus on productivity, Chris made it very clear to his team that “SMI foundry only exists because of SMI customers and therefore meeting and exceeding the quality requirements of these customers is paramount.

The foundry being an extension to SMI main manufacturing facilities in the second industrial area in Riyadh, introduced the same best practices and modern management systems such as PPAP, Lean, Planned maintenance, Data recording, Controlled process parameters for production, appraisal system and the establishment of a Quality system registered to ISO 9001-2008.

With fully equipped mechanical, metallurgical, thermal analysis, NDT labs, casting simulation software, SMI foundry is capable of producing a wide range of iron & steel grades with a maximum casting weight of up to 3,000 kg per component.

Chris Allott reflects on the highlights of his first year in Saudi, “the ongoing improvement of performance, the continuous support of the company’s higher management, the commitment of the workforce and working in a family type environment was overwhelming.  The hospitality of the Saudi people and all Arab and non-Arab expats made me feel at home.  I look forward for the next phase of SMI’s ambitious plans which I know will be exciting and challenging”.