Business is booming at Dammam-based Al Arabi Factory for Steel Works (ASF) – a major manufacturer of structural steel frames, girders, beams and miscellaneous steel structures – which is currently operating two shifts a day to cope with the huge demand for its fabrication services.

The company, which became fully operational early last year under its managing director Saeed Al Musbeh, has witnessed a surge in business volumes over the past few months and is already poised for expansion, involving a larger land area and additional manpower and sophisticated CNC plate processing machines due to arrive next month.
“Business is very good and we have been recruiting new staff practically every month to cope with the volume of work at hand,” says Mahmoud Shamieh, operations manager.
According to him, the driving force behind the company’s success is a quest for excellence in steel fabrication and customer satisfaction. To help attain its goal, ASF addresses the following issues: is the end-product fit for the purpose, safe in use and is it value for the customer’s money?
This quest for excellence has earned ASF the ISO-9001:2000 certification last month and the company is now poised to be included in Saudi Aramco’s list of approved vendors, according to Shamieh.
ASF was set up following a study conducted by a group of experienced industrialists and professionals at various levels – engineering, manufacturing, sales and management – who recognised the need to fill a gap in a market that is becoming steadily more industrialised, he says.
“They believed that to meet the need for engineering services in the market, a company manned by professionals should be set up to provide a diversified range of services related to steel structures, including design, detailing and fabrication of almost all imaginable structural steel structures,” he indicates.
Hence ASF was established to supply state-of-the-art fabricated structural steel to the industry.

Project portfolio
ASF’s current order book includes a selection of some of the major steel fabrication projects under way in the region. These include fabrication of:
• Various components, ranging from access pipe bridges to wall structures, for Hadeed’s steel plant expansion in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The main contractor is Saudi Voest Alpine;
• Structural steel frame for the 22-storey Bahrain Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Bahrain. The main contractor is Cebarco;
• Counterweight boxes for Al Suwaidi Heavy Equipment and Transport Company in the Eastern Province;
• Roof framing system for the banquet hall of Movenpick Hotel in Dammam;
• Machine platforms for Sabic factories in Yanbu ; and
• Structural steel elements for a cement factory in Riyadh. The main contractor is Gamma.
ASF has already undertaken fabrication of complex structural steel structures for power and water projects, gas and petrochemical plants, commercial and residential buildings. Some of its recently completed projects include the n-Paraffin and Lab Project (which involved blasting and painting of structural steel members as well as supply of steel products) and supply of structural steel for a cement plant expansion at Qassim for IHI, both in Saudi Arabia; and supply of structural steel for the Ras Laffan B power and water project and Dolphin Onshore Gas Plant project (including blasting and painting), both in Qatar.

Manufacturing facilities
ASF’s manufacturing facilities cover a total land area of 15,000 sq m of which 9,600 sq m are utilised for production and the rest for warehousing and a main administrative building. However, procurement of adjacent vacant lots for its imminent area expansion is currently on the pipeline.
Its facilities have been divided into the following areas based on product lines:
• Abrasive blast cleaning and painting area, consisting of equipment for surface preparation and application of required protective coating;
• Fabrication area, dedicated to the manufacture of structures such as frames, girders and beams among others from hot-rolled sections; and
• Secondary area, comprising equipment for the manufacture of connection plates and clips, and other items.
It is staffed by competent technical and engineering personnel.
ASF is equipped with the latest design and detailing software along with sophisticated machines and equipment, which helps in fabricating complex steel structures at the shortest possible time. In addition to its engineering and manufacturing capabilities, the company also maintains a quality assurance programme to avoid production errors and to ensure the quality of its delivered products.
“We are able to design and fabricate different types of steel structures such as buildings, warehouses, pipe racks, pipe bridges, platforms and equipment support systems which can be used for commercial, industrial, petrochemical and other purposes. We also have the capability to fabricate different types of miscellaneous steel to complement our main structures such as ladders, staircases, caged ladders, handrails and others products,” the spokesman says.
“To complete the whole structure, we can also supply different types of flooring systems such as grating, decking, checkered plates and other steel components,” he adds.
ASF adopts a flexible approach in order to cater to various needs of different clients. “We can undertake the design, fabrication and supply of steel structures. In cases where our clients provide their design, we can assist in the fabrication and supply of their steel structures,” Shamieh points out.

Quality control
ASF’s quality control function is to develop and implement an integrated sequence or specific controls on quality, with regard to materials, process and products, based on design and industry specifications and customer requirements.
Quality is monitored both during in-process and the final manufacturing stage. The company adheres to the following codes/standards used for design and fabrication: American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), Metal Building Manufacturers Association (MBMA), American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), American Welding Society (AWS) and the Uniform Building Code (UBC).