Amonil sets up invention exchange for employees

Amonil Slobozia chemical fertiliser producer will create an Invention Exchange for its employees, so as to encourage them to come up with ideas to improve production flow and slash costs. The decision was made during a company’s General Meeting of Shareholders.
“As part of this move, which was initiated by shareholders, we set up a fund employees can use to implement their ideas,” stated Victor Dobrescu, general manager of the chemical plant.
According to the shareholders’ decision, Amonil’s “Inventions and Innovations Exchange” has a budget of 200,000 RON (55,000 euros), money that could be also used for the promotion of employees who come up with ideas.
“Part of the money is supposed to be also used for bonuses awarded to the employees coming up with new ideas. We used to pay bonuses for such initiatives before, too, but once these funds are managed in an organised framework, we hope employees will spend more time thinking of how they can come up with new ideas,” says Dobrescu.
Amonil decided to lay off 231 employees about two months ago, that is about 28% of its personnel, in a bid to make its operations profitable.
Amonil in the first half registered turnover worth 146.3 million RON (41.3 million euros), down 11% from the 164.4 million RON figure reported in the similar period of last year, and losses standing at 3.8 million RON (one million euros). The company in the first half of last year generated net income worth 4.5 million RON. Amonil has been harmed by rising prices of methane gas in recent years, the main raw material used in the production of chemical fertilisers.
One of the company’s growth opportunities after 2007 will come in the form of the subsidies farmers will get in the wake of EU integration.
The domestic market of chemical fertilisers is now extremely small when compared with the production capacity of domestic producers, but domestic sales are more profitable for producers since they can afford to sell at higher prices here than abroad.
The company’s new operational strategy, which came into effect on September 1, along with the collective layoffs, as a matter of fact stipulates volumes delivered onto the domestic market should be raised, considering a large part of Amonil’s production used to be exported.