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Quality Report

Sohar Aluminum

Contents
Company’s Background..............................................................................................................................1
General Quality Strategy.............................................................................................................................2
Customer Quality Relationship Management..............................................................................................3
Comparison.................................................................................................................................................6
Analysis.......................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................8
References.................................................................................................................................................10

Company’s Background
Sohar Aluminum is an Omani Company and is located in the sultanate of Oman. It was
established in 2004 with the aim to undertake a landmark Greenfield aluminum smelter. It is a
joint venture of Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC – TAQA, OQ SAOC, and Rio
Tinto. The company is currently holding over one thousand employees. After deep research and
keeping in view the historical industry practices, Sohar Aluminum is specially designed with the
specification needed to cater to the efficiency, environmental impact, and the utmost safety and
security of its workforce. Sohar Aluminum is known in Oman and also internationally for its
high-quality aluminum production. The company is currently producing 390,000 tons of high-
quality aluminum. Omnisation is the biggest station of Sohar Aluminum in which seventy-six
percent of the company's workforce are working. It is the backbone of the company and
contributes massively towards the revenues. Sohar Aluminum takes its employees very seriously,
and it believes in the growth of its employees. It is the reason that the company has its own
employee training program, which is internationally recognized, and it works for the
development of the employees. Through this training program, employees are periodically
trained to keep in mind the advancement in the technology. It gives every employee the chance
to improve his/her skill further and contribute to the company's growth. Outside its own
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company, Sohar Aluminum is supporting local industry. The company is interested in uplifting
the small and medium-sized enterprises that ultimately benefit the local community by creating
job opportunities and other means. The company is currently working on a number of projects
that aim to develop small and medium-sized enterprises. If we talk about the consumption of the
production of the company. Sixty percent of Sohar Aluminum's production is consumed in the
local market while the rest is being sent outside of the sultanate of Oman.

Apart from its commercial contribution to the economy of the sultanate of Oman, Sohar
Aluminum's corporate social responsibility helps the community in different sectors. 1.5 percent
of the company's revenue is annually being spent on CSR. There are six main areas in which the
company's CSR lies, "Jusoor Project, Sustainable Project, Education, Social Contribution and
Voluntary Projects, Environment, Health and Safety, Gulf Aluminum Council." Like the rise of
the sultanate of Oman onto the world stage, Sohar Aluminum is leading the industry by fostering
and preserving the cultural heritage and taking environmentally friendly steps.

General Quality Strategy

Quality is the most important part of any company's product, and it is a characteristic that
distinguishes a company's product from others in the market. A company can satisfy its
stakeholders through a quality product. Quality strategy is the way a company handles its quality
related to its products. It plays a significant role in the company's productivity and marketing. A
company can better perform and suit its products to the market demand by knowing its
customers' exact tastes. The company molds the quality of its products according to the quality
demanded by the stakeholders. In doing so, every company has to balance between cost and
quality. In order to beat the competition and stand out in the market, ensuring the quality of the
product is very necessary. ISO 9000:215 section 3.6.2 defines quality as "the degree to which a
set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfills requirements." In the case of a metal industry,
the end products are used in the manufacturing of many other products, so it needs to be of a
quality that should not defect the resulting product and make that end product function properly.

At Sohar Aluminum, the company strives to achieve quality products as much as it can. Keeping
in view the demands of its shareholders and a sustainable operation of its business, the company
fully complies with its policies regarding quality management. Although, like every other
company Sohar Aluminum works to maximize the profits of its shareholders, but at the same
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time, it does not compromise on the quality management system. Customers are the backbone of
every business; their requirement triumphs every other thing. According to the company, their
quality management system consistently comprises of the principle to "meet the highest
customer expectations in product quality and supply reliability, while maximizing the
shareholder value." The company follows the standard policy given by ISO 9001:2015, which
iterates quality management system as "needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide
product and services that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements,
and aims t enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the quality
management system, including processes for improvement of the quality management system
and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory
requirements." Sohar Aluminum meets the standards set in the ISO and fully comply with its
customer's satisfaction by taking into consideration the customers needs while designing
policies, ensuring consistency in their products, get back to customers as soon as possible to
answers their inquiries, and making supplies at a time, maintaining quality customers services,
improving business synergies periodically and through its corporate social responsibility by
contributing to the uplift the local industry and maximizing social footprint.

Management Approach
Customers Customer satisfaction
New Downstream Customer
Sustainable Supply Chain Management Local Procurement
Vendor Symposium
Contractor Management
Contractor Working Conditions
Contractor Safety
Quality and Reliability
Table 1

Steps taken by Sohar Aluminum to engage customers.

Customer Quality Relationship Management

With globalization, the competition in the market has increased exorbitantly. Businesses are
striving to keep up with the competition. In this struggle understanding customers and keeping
them happy is the crux. Understanding customers not only helps in retaining the already existing
customers but it also aids in procuring new customers. Ensuring quality and reaching out to
customers through a quality customer service and a robust marketing is crucial to have a quality
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customer relationship. Businesses are practicing customer relationship management strategies,

but at the same time, they are struggling in which way they need to analyze their performance in
the eyes of their customers. Identifying customer's values is really important because it comes at
a huge cost, and it is the main thing that generates the revenue of any business. There used to be
a monotonic customer relationship in the past, but due to the advancement in other parts of life,
this has become very diverse and sophisticated. According to Yonggui Wang et al. (2004) in
order to develop an effective customer relationship management, it is necessary to understand the
underlying customer's values, the implications of the customer relationship, and how to improve
the performance by designing them on the customer's values. The authors illustrated the
customer value and customer value performance through a diagram presented below. The
authors have considered "functional value, social value, emotional value, and customer perceive
sacrifices" as the key dimensions of customer's values in the diagram. It can also be measured
through tangible ways such as their behavior towards the company, whether they are
repurchasing the items and intangible ways such as their loyalty to the company.

Fig 1
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In a survey conducted by Abbott, Julie (2001) when the respondent was asked how they could
build a better relationship with the customer, they answered in three ways. The first was to get as
closer to the customer as a company can and know them individually. Second, there is a need to
engage new technologies to collect customer data, in today's world, these new technologies could
be social media, etc. The third and final response was to do the marketing as much persuasive as
they can, this can be done when the company knows their customer's emotions. Scholars writing
about marketing and customer relationship often appreciate the significance of customer loyalty
as a core strategic point in any industry (Cooil et al. 2007). Customers who are loyal to their
brand are the asset of the company; they are involved with the company for a long time and have
a deeper relationship. Especially in the metal industry, customers come after a long time, so
keeping them in the loop is essential for a metal company. In the modern world, due to increased
competition, it has become difficult to retain customers. This demands a high quality customer
relationship management. Nyandayo, Munyaradzi and Khajehzadeh, Saman (2016) have
developed the following conceptual map to understand the customer. According to the brand,
image plays a central role in making a strong bond with the customers.

Fig 2

Sohar Aluminum also faces challenges in satisfying its customers and retaining a relationship
with them for a long time. It employs different methods to build a strong relationship with its
customers, like providing quality products, corporate social responsibility, uplifting and
developing local small and medium-sized enterprises, and conducting a bi-annual survey of its
customer's satisfaction. Sohar Aluminum solidly accepts that building solid and dependable
connections is fundamental to giving an astounding client experience and satisfying every client's
necessities in a fruitful, also, practical way. As we have developed and turned into a pioneer in
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the worldwide aluminum industry, we are coming to completely understand the degree to which
our business is adding to the monetary turn of events locally, territorially, and universally
through income age, investor returns, and the arrangement of aluminum. In order to ensure the
whether the company is fulfilling the satisfaction of its customer or not, the company two times
in a year conducts surveys among its customers. It helps in directly connecting with the
customers and getting any queries and suggestions the customers have. It also builds up the
image of the company among its customer that how much the company is caring for the feedback
of its customer and how much it is valuing its customers. It helps the company to work on its
weaknesses timely. To meet the demands of its customer Sohar Aluminum formulated a
partnership with Synergies Castings LLC, an Indian company leading in the industry of
manufacturing of aluminum alloy wheels. After this partnership, the company will be able to
provide aluminum alloy wheels to its customers. This will not only help the company in boosting
the local economy, but it will also export these products. Another aspect of customer relationship
management in the Sohar Aluminum is sustainable supply chain management. Through this, the
company tries to minimize risks, balance out the price, and eliminate any disruption in the
production line via a delivering product at the specified time and meet the customers' deadlines.
It also helps the company to reduce cost through decreasing shelf time and sound supplies
negotiations. Sohar Aluminum makes its best efforts to develop the local economy as much as
possible, but there is a certain thing for which the company has to look abroad, for example, raw
material. However, the Sohar Aluminum is trying to create partnerships with local resource
providers to procure raw material and machinery locally. Additionally, through symposiums, the
company is adding to its local value. In 2018 more than one hundred and ninety small and
medium size enterprises attend its symposium. This symposium was planned to make the local
industry of Oman aware about the Sohar Aluminum's procurement process and how the local
business can make partnerships with Sohar Aluminum. Contractors are one of the key
stakeholders of Sohar Aluminum. They are the ones who provide technical and maintenance
services. So the company must meet their requirements of our plant resources and labor interest.
They agree with Sohar Aluminum's prerequisites to deal with the site, which incorporate
operational and EHS prerequisites. Sohar Aluminium's Contractor Management Guide, which
traces destinations for project worker execution and oversight, is dug in how we deal with our
project workers and is persistently explored and improved. All workers for hire are evaluated
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during the assessment cycle dependent on Environmental, Health, and Safety execution and
commanded to maintain Sohar Aluminum's thorough wellbeing guidelines. Last but not least
quality and reliability of the product are essential for customer satisfaction. Sohar Aluminum
does not left any stone unturned to meet this requirement. The company makes the best efforts to
deliver quality based management for successful customer relationships. It has a quality policy
that ensures that the product ending in the hands of customers must fully comply with the quality
specified with all aspects, "Sohar Aluminum Cathouse has been certified under the updated ISO
9001:2015 Quality Management Systems”.

Comparison
Sohar Aluminum always keeps the quality of its products as its top priority while at the same
time it improves its effectiveness as well. Over the year, it has become a benchmark smelter
through its consistency and optimized product effectiveness, keeping in mind the customer
quality and the environmental impact of its operations. The industry in which Sohar Aluminum
is working is a fast growing industry and a lot of competition, so to keep up with the pace, Sohar
Aluminum has to develop systemic strategies to enhance its operations and improve product
quality. To enhance productivity, the company takes measures like waste reduction, improved
efficiency, reduced recycling timing, and minimized the cost of materials. According to the
company reports, in 2018, the company produced 379775 metric tonnes of end products. It was a
massive increase in comparison with the past. The improvement owes its success to the increased
efficiency in the product line. It was also its best at the level of purity. Moreover, the company
thorough its employment training and machinery replacement to keep up with the new
requirements it was able to significantly improve the quality of the Anode Plant. It is
contionesoulsy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through MoUs with other international
companies and develop the Research and development sector. To meet its customers' demands,
the company continuously adds up its assets and maintains its current asset at an optimal level. In
2018 the maintenance team did ninety one percent of the scheduled work on time. Further, to
better monitor the customer's demands, system checks, customers feed backs, the company
upgraded its business applications. It will also help the intra departments to work closely and
efficiently. The company also replaced the desktops which it was used since its inception and
replaced them with virtual desktop infrastructure. This will create a positive effect on the
environment, decreasing the electronic waste. In accordance with best practices to guarantee long
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haul supportability, SA executed Business Continuity Management (BCM) during 2018. BCM is
characterized as the association's capacity to convey items or administrations at adequate
predefined levels following a problematic episode. Sohar Aluminum is performing better than
Alba and EGA, which are a couple of its competitors in the region. It is competing with its
competitors not on the quality level but also on the customer relationship management level. The
reason for this the better customer relationship management system in the company. It engages
its customers at every front and never loses a chance to go away a new customers. Retaining the
existing customers and persuading new ones is the sole purpose of the Sohar Aluminum’s
customer relationship management purpose.

Reality Possible Gaps

More focus on mainstream marketing Less presence of social media
More focus on local customers International customers should be given equal
attention
Importation of raw material Should procure raw material locally
Engagement of customers through quality and Marketing needs to cater to the emotions of
reliability the customers
Strategy centered around retaining the Although Sohar Aluminum campaigns to
existing customers catch new customers, it has to make robust
advertisement to attract new customers
Table 2

Analysis
In the early 1980s, business analysts develop this new concept at that time, they called it "contact
management," which later turned into "customer relationship management.". Customer
relationship management is one of the core principles of the marketing strategy of any company
because, through this, the company holds onto its loyal customers and loyal customers are the
ones who contribute towards the revenue of a company then non loyal customers (Zeithaml et
al., 1996). Customer relationship is the way a company communicates with its customers, it takes
various forms, interactive sessions, and communication strategies. This may be in the form of
ensuring the quality, better marketing, asking for the feedback, holding seminars and events
through corporate social responsibility. the main purpose of customer relationship is to build a
long-term sustainable relationship with the customers (Berry, 1995). If a company knows its
customers better, it will target its right customer with the right product. In today's world, this has
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become much easier using artificial intelligence. Companies are using social media to collect
their user's data and then target them with the specific product. Relationship speculations, for
example, CRM activities are critical in driving clients' propensity to feel focused on and keep up
the relationship, as such CRM ventures signal the company's endeavors to keep up the
relationship (Balaji, 2015). In the case of Sohar Aluminum, it is doing a better job at the
customer relationship management front. In the recent years, it has taken many steps to uplift the
customer relationship. It has widened the circle of corporate social responsibility, which is the
best way to portray a positive image of the company. Through this, the company can show its
presence to its customers and show its loyalty by investing in the uplift of the community. The
company is involved in many projects that work to develop and enhance the local small and
medium size industry. Through this, the customer base is increasing, and it is also able to
connect with the government and other industries. Nowadays, the environmental impact of a
business is a major concern for the people, Sohar Aluminum, by improving its efficiency and
reducing its carbon footprint, building a positive image among its customers, which further
strengthens its relationship with them. However, the company has not yet been able to show its
presence on social media, which is essential to keep in view the number of social media users. It
will help the company show and advertise its product to the world, but it will also help the
company better understand its customer by providing them an easy way to access the company.
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Fig 3

Certification for the best Management Strategy

Recommendations
The company is constantly improving its strategies which is a better thing as competition grows
in the industry. It has already been mentioned above that one of the areas in which the company
lacks is its use of information technology to reach out to customers. Merely surveying customers
for their feedback once or twice a year will not be sufficient, it will not be able to understand the
customer's emotions. The presence of the company on social media will equip it with the tools to
understand its existing and potential customers emotionally and target them and innovate
accordingly. Sohar Aluminum needs a robust communication plan to get back to its customers
and make it as easy as possible for the customers to reach the company. Given the contemporary
situation, most people are afraid to visit outside and physically go to a company and give their
demands or feedback. So, it is very essential to go online and make things online as they are
feasible. Also, input systems can be applied to recover client information about items to be
feasible for the endeavor to empower orderly improvement and item development.
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