Abu Dhabi Ports announces winners of MAFNOOD 2016

Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 1, 2016:  Abu Dhabi Ports, the master developer, operator and manager of commercial ports and Khalifa Industrial Zone in the Emirate, announced the winners of the second cycle of its internal excellence award, MAFNOOD (Arabic for “distinguished”). Launched under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, MAFNOOD recognises excelling performers at Abu Dhabi Ports under three categories: “Units and Divisions”, which is MAFNOOD’s main category, “Projects and Outstanding teams”, and “Individuals”.

CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports, Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi honoured the winners at a ceremony held in Abu Dhabi on 30 October. Ten winners were honoured in the “Individuals” category, while five projects were selected in the “Projects and Outstanding teams” category, and seven units were honoured in the main category.

Captain Mohamed Al Shamisi commented: “We have launched our internal excellence awards, MAFNOOD, to recognise best practices and outstanding performers in Abu Dhabi Ports. This comes in line with the vision of our wise leadership which aims to instil a culture of excellence within government entities and promote the values of quality and commitment. The second cycle of MAFNOOD was even more successful than last year’s edition as we received 85 submissions compared to 58 in 2014. This is a great positive indicator of the increased level of internal awareness about the culture of excellence we promote in Abu Dhabi Ports and the healthy level of competition between units, projects and individuals.”

“As part of our commitment to excellence, we did not only launch MAFNOOD as our internal excellence scheme, but we have also created a dedicated quality assurance and excellence department within our organisational structure which has been instrumental in the success of MAFNOOD and internal performance enhancement. I would like to congratulate the winners and thank them for their dedication and hard work which continues to drive the future of Abu Dhabi Ports towards more success and achievements,” he concluded.

Abu Dhabi Ports’ internal excellence award, MAFNOOD, was designed in line with the Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance (ADAEP). The winners of MAFNOOD automatically qualify to enter the ADAEP competition which will be taking place next year.

Ahmad Alkhayat, Senior Quality Assurance and Excellence Manager at Abu Dhabi Ports, said: “We have conducted six knowledge sessions, and one more is planned this month, as part of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council’s series which aims to exchange knowledge between the different government entities. Over the past few months, participants were highly engaged and actively working to improve their submissions which has resulted in the collection of more points in each category. This level of participation at the 2016 edition of MAFNOOD reflects the commitment of the team at Abu Dhabi Ports to maintain the highest standards of quality and excellence across the individual and corporate level.”

This year’s cycle of MAFNOOD featured the introduction of the “excellence line” standard, which gives participating individuals, teams, and units who surpass it the opportunity to be recognised and encourages them to elevate corporate performance. This has significantly increased the number of honourees in most of the categories.

Carried out by external assessors, the assessment process took a period of three weeks and was based on different application documents, and in-depth interviews which focussed on many aspects including leadership, strategy, project management, work planning and organisation, customer service and creativity.