In every business climate, there are opportunities to be captured and problems to be solved if a business is to be positioned for sustainable success. A successful business must meet the needs of its customers and deliver profits and growth over the long term to its shareholders. Just as importantly, it must provide a safe workplace for its employees, develop employee talent as a true source of competitive advantage, and understand the expectations of its community, particularly in terms of environmental performance.

In the 12 months leading up to September 2009, our industry has seen a huge change in demand for our products and hence in revenues. Short term business imperatives have changed dramatically in response. Our improvement focus has shifted from growth in production and value added product growth to an urgent need to cut production costs, in the context of our core values of maintaining a safe and environmentally responsible operation. Whilst our Business Improvement Vision and strategy were well suited to times of rapid growth, they are invaluable in the current context. It may well be said that there has never been a better time to work on Business Improvement!

This presentation will describe the approach used within Rio Tinto Alcan to improve and add value to our business. Our goal is to identify improvement opportunities that represent the greatest value to the business, and to deliver them quickly. This philosophy applies to large scale capital projects and technological innovations as well as to smaller operational improvements. The engagement of our people is critical to achieving this goal. Success requires everyone to understand the strategy for the business overall, and to be involved in delivering improvement as part of their daily work. As problem solving and improvement become part of everyone's job, leadership and influencing skills are important for engineers and other business improvement professionals.