During a call bringing together representatives from Alcoa facilities around the world, Alcoa senior management announced on March 9, 2023 the winners of the Alcoa Best Practices Transfer Awards for 2022. The Baie-Comeau team won no less than 3 of the 6 prizes awarded.
Among the projects submitted by the Alcoa group foundries, the digital twin project developed in Baie-Comeau won. This tool makes it possible to model the aluminum production flow in order to eliminate waste and optimize each step of the process. It involves close collaboration of several departments and results in significant gains in security, stability and efficiency. This project had already won the digital favorite prize at the Salon des meilleures pratiques d’affaires in Montreal last fall. In addition, it was recently presented by representatives of the Baie-Comeau aluminum smelter at the Simio Sync 2023 conference in Pittsburgh, United States, bringing together nearly 200 corporate users of Simio software.
Among the projects submitted by the electrolysis departments of all Alcoa plants, the initiative aimed at preventively shutting down a tank at the end of its useful life in a controlled manner also won. Developed with the help of the Deschambault Aluminerie team, this strategy has enabled immense gains in terms of safety and stability. This project also won top honors, being chosen as the big global winner for 2022, all categories combined.
For the general manager of the Baie-Comeau aluminum smelter, Mr. Jesus Marono, “at Alcoa, innovation is an integral part of the company’s vision which consists of “Reinventing the aluminum industry for a sustainable future “. Innovating means learning from each other and sharing best practices around the world in order to highlight solutions with recognized impact, while improving process efficiency. Today’s results clearly show that the Baie-Comeau team is committed to the success of the plant and the company, for the benefit of our employees and our community.”
About Alcoa Canada
Alcoa employs more than 2,500 people in Canada, where its activities are spread across four establishments and factories in Quebec, namely the Baie-Comeau, Bécancour (ABI) and Deschambault aluminum smelters, as well as the headquarters Canadian social service in Montreal. These factories have an annual production capacity of more than one million metric tons of ingot, plate and billet. More information is available at www.alcoa.com/canada.
About the Baie-Comeau Smelter
The Baie-Comeau Smelter has a team of more than 900 employees producing 312,000 metric tons of aluminum per year. Its foundry is mainly dedicated to the production of rolling plates, a value-added product. In 2022, the Baie-Comeau Aluminum Smelter generated more than $460 million in local spending in Quebec.
Source: Dominic Martin, communications manager
Alcoa Aluminum Smelter in Baie-Comeau
418 296-7271
dominic.martin@alcoa.com
Source: Le Manic