Company Profile

RAKNOR is one of the prestigious and oldest high-quality hard landscaping concrete product manufacturing and supplying companies in the Middle East, specializing in pavers, tiles, kerbstones, masonry blocks, ready mix concrete and customized precast solutions.

Expanded over the last four decades from being a pioneer in the industry to becoming the market leader. Raknor has continually evolved to meet the growing demand for quality concrete products in the booming U.A.E. market. As the construction industry has grown ever-more advanced and imaginative in the breadth and scope and of individual building projects, so too has RAKNOR, who has increased its own expertise and sophistication to become the leading provider of concrete products both in terms of quantity and quality.

As a company, we believe passionately in the excellence of service, innovation and development. Along with those qualities, we remain committed to the health, safety and welfare of our employees along with the creation of a sustainable future for everyone through the protection of the environment. Our raw materials are drawn from our sister companies, Stevin Rock and RAK Rock, and in conjunction with these firms, we place great emphasis on evolving our production processes to ensure that the development of our industry does not conflict with the preservation of our environment for future generations.

Working towards the goal of developing our industry to the benefit of the entire community, RAKNOR, along with our sister companies, represents a direct source of major investment for the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. RAKNOR is also ideally located for export by being adjacent to one of the world’s largest quarries and Saqr Port, the major bulk-handling port in the Middle East which is one of our partner businesses.

As a vital part of the construction industry in Ras Al Khaimah for more than 4 decades, RAKNOR has grown to become one of the key factors in the ongoing success of the development of the region as a growing hub for the construction, industry and manufacturing sectors.

VISION & MISSION

OUR VISION - To build and maintain our position as a leading supplier of concrete products in the Ras Al Khaimah and beyond and to act as a leader in improving the sustainability in our industry.

OUR MISSION - To deliver stakeholder value by being the supplier of choice through the provision of high-quality products, achieving customer requirements and specification every time, supported by a skilled workforce who thrive on providing excellence to our customers and each other.

VALUES

R - Relationships - Build and maintain mutually beneficial trading relationships;

A - Added value – Serve the customer through the provision of quality products and service;

K - Knowledge – Share skills and knowledge to help the business grow;

N - Nurture – Care for employees and the Environment;

O - Origination – Continuous improvement;

R - Right – Do the right thing.

CULTURE

To retain and build upon our reputation for reliability and quality

To look to the future and solve our customers’ problems and help them succeed

To share openly between senior management and the workforce for the benefit of both groups and the company. To evolve our knowledge base in terms of delivering quality products and delivering quality service

To maintain efficient, effective service, without compromising the health and safety of our employees to lead by example, every day.

DEVELOPING OUR WORKFORCE

We believe that our Human Resources are our greatest asset. Through the respect for human dignity, championing a mixed international culture and upholding ethics and integrity are the core pillars on which we build and implement our HR policies.

The personal and professional development of our employees is fundamental for RAKNOR, just as much as we understand the importance of motivation in the development of one’s professional career.

Management

Our management team is responsible for the daily running of the company and for ensuring that our production, sales and QA teams achieve their potential. RAKNOR is fortunate to be able to call upon the services of a highly-experienced team drawn from international backgrounds all of whom have extensive experience and expertise in this field. Each management team member takes an active role in the formulation and execution of both the strategic and tactical decisions that drive RAKNOR forward.

DR. NASER AL BUSTAMI

GENERAL MANAGER

Naser Bustami is the Board Director and General Manager of RAKNOR, Stevin Rock and RAK Rock. The three companies have a combined annual turnover in excess of US$ 500 million and a workforce of more than 4,000 employees. With 30 years’ experience in technical and commercial management across numerous multi-billion dollar projects in the region, Naser holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering along with a Masters (MBA) degree and a Doctorate (DBA) in Business Administration.

GRAHAM FARRINGTON

works MANAGER

A Board Director and Works Manager, Graham has extensive experience in the quarrying and mining industries, having worked in a variety of diverse roles, spanning multiple countries and continents for 32 years.

The holder of an Honours Degree in Mining Engineering from Nottingham University in the UK, Graham also holds an MBA from the University of Warwick, also in the UK.

Partnership With Godelmann

Raknor has partnered with a renowned German concrete products manufacturing company – Godelmann GmbH & Co. KG. This partnership has helped us to embed and integrate the latest technologies within the industry and provide the upper hand over competitors to manufacture the best quality products and cater for our customer needs efficiently.

Godelmann was founded in 1947. They claim themselves as the “Stone Inventors”. Concrete stone is a building material that is so much smarter, more versatile and more sensual than one might suspect at first. Especially if it is not just any stone - but one that has been invented for a special purpose. Because what they do is not limited to developing exceptional surface systems, they also think and create a stone that is completely new. In their in-house stone laboratory, they work on new ideas, experiment with new raw materials and design new recipes until a stone of the highest quality is created.

Human Resources

RAKNOR prides itself on delivering a high-standard industry levels of production, safety and logistics. We firmly believe that all of it could not be achieved without a team of professionals, who stand behind this operational excellence.

We believe in the Individual and therefore:

  • We value our employees’ individual contributions

  • We respect each other

  • We believe that each of us has the potential to grow and develop

  • We invest in the development of our people

  • We help each other develop and grow professionally

  • We recognize the importance of each other’s personal responsibilities

  • We value individual judgment

  • We are responsible for our safety and the safety of others

  • We respect seeking advice – “we ask rather than guess”

  • We listen to each other’s opinions and concerns

Processes

1- RAW MATERIALS

The vast majority of the raw materials used in our products are limestone in origin, locally sourced from the mountains in Ras Al Khaimah close to the plant. The materials are carefully separated into various size and colour fractions and the resultant aggregates and sands are held in different bins to allow accurate batching to form the required mix designs.

 

Separate raw materials are held for the base and the face mixes allowing a very wide range of colours and textures be created. 


Various cements and cement replacements are also sourced locally from the cement works located close to the plant.


Finally the high quality fade resistant pigments and admixtures are sourced from Germany to ensure the highest finished product quality.

2- MIXING

When a production batch starts, the required amounts of sand, aggregate, and cement are individually weighed before being transferred into a concrete mixer where they are mixed for a set duration with water. After mixing is completed the concrete is transported to the block machine, which can be by conveyor or travelling skips.


3- PRESSING

The new state-of-the-art production system enables several concrete mixes to be batched, mixed and supplied to the production area automatically. Once the different concrete mixes reach the different feeding hoppers over the block machine, the unique multi-colour system produces the final specified face-mix and base mix and feeds them to the press. The completed mixes are then fed to the mould and formed into the required shape by the main press. The completed moulded products are then transported to the curing chamber by conveyor.

4- CURING

Blocks are automatically transported into the curing chambers which can hold several thousand blocks at one time.

After a specified curing period the blocks are automatically retrieved from the curing chamber and once again transported by conveyor to an automatic cuber.

5- CUBING

The finished blocks are picked up by a robotic grab and stacked into bigger packs of blocks.

These are then strapped and moved to the load out area where they are moved to either an external stock yard to await delivery or direct to waiting vehicles.

                                          

Quality

QUALITY IS WHO WE ARE

If reputation is what RAKNOR’s success is built upon, then the two key pillars upon which the company was founded are Trust and Quality. When our company began over four decades ago, we made the twin goals of achieving ‘trust among our customers’ and ‘quality of product’ our overriding priority and today, we still pride ourselves on delivering a premium service which never stops evolving and improving.

Our Khor Khuwair facility is one of the most modern and advanced plants in the Middle East and our production units are sourced from global leaders in the manufacturing industry. These are staffed by a highly skilled and experienced workforce who are dedicated to meeting the demanding expectations of our customers. Our staff are consistently trained in safety awareness and strict environmental controls at every stage of the production process. 

Our manufacturing, sales and supply operations are certified to ISO 9001:2015,14001:2015 & OSHAS 450001:2018, underpinning our commitment to delivering the Quality, Environment and Health & Safety performance that has become a hallmark of RAKNOR. The RAKNOR Quality Assurance teams work in close liaison with the production department, drawing on its team members’ years of experience and expertise, to independently carry out extensive testing.

Alongside achieving those industry benchmarks, we continue to invest in the on-going improvement of all processes and systems, both in terms of investment of resources and in the implementation of rigorous testing of raw materials.

Sustainability

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH FOR ALL

RAKNOR takes a proactive role towards sustainability. As part of this RAKNOR is now a IS0 9001, 14001 & 45001 registered company.

Products made with cement have a high embodied carbon content and hence minimizing the cement content whilst not impacting on the product durability is a key part of what we do. Our readymix and precast operations supply and use cement replacements as standard, typically with a minimum of 50% of the cement replaced with ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), which provides a better quality of product but with only half the usual cement content. 

Transport of raw materials is also kept to an absolute minimum, with 95% of the raw materials (aggregate from sister companies Stevin Rock & RAK Rock and cement from GCC & UCC) being sourced within 5km of the manufacturing plants.

Water is another critical part of the process and our latest plant includes a waste water treatment & recycling system which allow the reuse of up to 98% of water utilized during the production process.

Quality products are very important to us, and this also means that wastage during production and handling is managed through the QMS and whatever waste is generated, it is segregated and recycled wherever possible.

Energy management is another important area which has been directly built into the production facility. Power management, soft starts, high-efficiency drives, LED lighting combined with high-efficiency cooling systems along with a fully enclosed and insulated building, all contribute to minimizing energy consumption whilst providing a comfortable working environment.

Our products meet the requirements or scope of Green Building Regulations such as regional materials, recycled materials (i.e., use of industrial byproducts such as GGBS and micro-silica), building envelope – Thermal Transmittance (U-Value of Thermal Blocks) and Urban Heat Island Reduction (SRI).

For products that need to be delivered on pallets, these are collected from site wherever possible and reused. Pallets can be re-manufactured as and when necessary.

We have added 11 new EURO 5 standard trucks to our delivery fleet with high capacity trailers to reduce truck movements and fuel consumption, thus further reducing our carbon footprint. 

Health & Safety

Our Collective Responsibility

Our Policy on Health & Safety is clear: we believe it is our collective responsibility to ensure our operations proceed in a safe and healthy environment. That’s achieved by the development of robust health and safety measures. As part of these measures, we provide our entire workforce with safety awareness training, with the goal of protecting employee interests via an objective of zero harm and this policy is further underpinned by an expectation that employees at all levels of the company take personal responsibility for maintaining health and safety protocols. Chief among those protocols are the following:

  • The prevention of human suffering or loss of life

  • The realisation of safe, healthy and hygienic working conditions

  • A continuously improving working atmosphere

  • The reduction of material damage as well as production losses.