Zamil Air Conditioning

I woke up in Dammam looking forward to the afternoon, when Saad (our young public relations host from the Department of Higher Education) and Ali (a prominent young Saudi businessman in the oil pipeline industry) promised to reveal a surprise to the MSFS group. I expected it to be good because for the first time since our arrival in the KSA, we were asked to dress casually. I imagined that we would have some sort of outdoor activities. But let me not get ahead of myself and first, let me tell you about our morning.

After the usual continental breakfast at the hotel, the group got in the van and headed to the factory of Zamil Air Conditioners. According to its website, “Zamil Air Conditioners was founded in 1974 as one of the first air conditioning companies to be established in Saudi Arabia and today is a leading international manufacturer of air conditioning systems and is Number One in the Middle East.”

On Zamil’s grounds, nothing from the outside would let one guess that he or she stands on the parking lot of a factory. The atmosphere was calm, the air was light and the modern black, glass and steel building reflected the well-trimmed landscape. We were invited into the building and welcomed with refreshments and sweets. A few managers and engineers dressed in casual business attires introduced the company before leading us to the working area of the factory. The warehouse and assembly lines were impressively organized and clean. Safety seemed to be a priority as suggested by the numerous warning signs and safety displays.

As we started to walk through the factory, the surrounding noises increased, and the 14 MSFS students dispersed to form small groups around each engineer. I walked alongside Sakhr Abghandi, an engineer who talked about the production of the factory. The company can produce up to 550,000 Room Air Conditioners, 300,000 Mini-Split systems and 50,000 Central Air Conditioning systems per year. This factory employs over 500 individuals, among which, about 150 engineers (trained in the company course, in Saudi Universities, in Bahrain, in the USA, etc). 

Only recently, 30 women have been hired to work in a hidden area of the plant. These women work on subassembly box units and on quality control, using bloc materials and diagrams. The seven women of our group were allowed to visit the women’s working area. I anxious awaited the reaction of the seven MSFS women. When the door opened, they appeared all smiles, which, I must admit took me aback. This would make for an interesting topic of conversation.

The tour completed, we engaged in a question and answer session and shared our impressions. The biggest takeaway of the tour was to realize how much the Kingdom prides itself for its advances in R&D and manufacturing (the hallmark of modern developed nations). We concluded our visit with a group photo. 

We then returned to the hotel to prepare for the afternoon activities.

--Ousseynou Sonko