Alba's focus on achieving sustainable annual savings of $ 250 million by the end of 2012 continues to gain momentum with the recent launch of Lean-Six Sigma Wave 7.

This is an Alba SmartWay initiative introduced to bring about quality improvement and enhanced operational efficiency.

Chief executive Laurent Schmitt, chief finance and supply officer Tim Murray and chief operating officer Isa Al Ansari met the new batch of Six Sigma Green Belt trained candidates who will be responsible for implementing eight approved projects that will pave the way for accomplishing Lean-Six Sigma Wave 7's overall goals.

The eight selected projects are expected to bring about an estimated savings of more than $ 10m and their implementation target will be the end of December.

"Alba has always committed itself to continuous improvement as a key component of its work culture and recognises that this methodology provides a spot-on route to operational efficiency and global competitiveness," said Mr Schmitt.

"The launch of Six Sigma is a step that will enable the company to achieve not only substantial cost savings but also anchor quality as an integral part of all operational processes.

"I wish the Lean Six Sigma Wave 7 team all success as they begin implementing the targets for each of the eight projects," he said.

"We are also confident that their success will pave the way for launching a Six Sigma Academy with trained experts from Alba," he added.

The eight projects that have been approved for implementation by Alba's executive management team are optimising inventory of the casthouse consumable elements; calciner process efficiency improvement; energy consumption optimisation; on-time customer delivery performance; optimising metal delivery; improving reliability of Power Station 4; net foundry and slab recovery; and specific energy consumption. PIC Mr Schmitt, second from left, addressing the new batch of Six Sigma Green Belt trained candidates