Rusal's Aluminium Automotive Products Meet International Certification Standards

RUSAL, a top-three global aluminium producer, announces that its Aluminium Division has obtained ISO/TS 16949:2002 conformity certificates for its quality management system. This international standard is applied to automotive industry suppliers.

The certificates were issued by the Norwegian auditing company Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a certification bureau recognized all over the world, to confirm that RUSAL's products for the automotive industry are produced and delivered in full conformity to the requirements of the world's leading automobile producers.

The introduction of the ISO/TS 16949:2002 requirements was part of RUSAL's plan to implement a quality management system. The ISO/TS 16949:2002 enables a company to reduce the number of product defects, to work on the continuous elimination of bottlenecks and increase production efficiency. The main advantage of a company holding an ISO/TS 16949:2002 certificate is that its customers are confident that the high quality of the products they buy is ensured on a regular basis, while their requirements and expectations are met by constant monitoring. With this certificate, RUSAL will be able to strengthen its position as an automotive parts supplier in both the international and the Russian markets.

In order to obtain the ISO/TS 16949:2002 certificate the company was audited according to the rules of the International Automotive Task Force — IATF. ISO/TS 16949:2002 certificates were awarded to Krasnoyarsk, Sayanogorsk and Novokuznetsk aluminium smelters. Every process, from order to delivery, both at the Managing Company and the smelters was audited for ISO/TS 16949:2002 conformity.

Commenting on the results of the audit, Det Norske Veritas' official representative, Evgeniy Chernov, said: ?Only a handful of companies have ISO/TS 16949 certificates because, among other things, the standard's requirements are strict and the certification procedure is very thorough. This, naturally, only adds significance to RUSAL's success in obtaining this certificate.

In order to increase the efficiency of its production management, the Aluminium Division (which includes Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novokuznetsk, Sayanogorsk and Khakas aluminium smelters) has integrated all production management processes into one quality management system which received an ISO 9001:2000 conformity certificate in June 2006.