Having won the Saudi Aramco 2018 Operational Excellence President’s Award, Yanbu NGL (natural gas liquids) Fractionation Plant (YNGLF) has instilled a culture of operational excellence (OE) among its employees and incorporated OE expectations into day-to-day activities.
As the heart of the Yanbu Industrial Area — providing feedstock to all neighbouring petrochemical industries — YNGLF is taking OE to new levels through an unrelenting pursuit of world-class implementation and performance, adapting and evolving to participate effectively at the upcoming 2018 King Abdulaziz Quality Awards and the Oil & Gas Middle East and Refining & Petrochemicals Middle East Awards.
“Operational excellence is central to achieving firms’ strategic objectives, and is delivering tangible results at YNGLF, hence, the plant is committed towards its vision of being a leading NGL fractionation facility that is admired for OE,” says Faisal Al Subhi, YNGLF Manager. To achieve its vision, YNGLF has adopted a set of key principles, manifested into a structured framework comprised of 13 elements and 37 processes, towards meeting stakeholders’ expectations, and contributing to the achievement of long-term sustainable comprehensive organisational success.
Changing a culture is a large-scale undertaking, and necessitates that all tools be put in play. “Certainly, management holds a vital role in the successful transformation to overcome the status quo and transition towards full implementation of OE across the entire enterprise” says Rami Al Shafiei, YNGLF OE Team Leader.
As a priority, the YNGLF manager conducts an annual vision, mission and strategies workshop to ensure OE implementation across the organisation, alignment with the kingdom’s directives, available resources and customer needs. This is followed by regular meetings to monitor the application of strategic OE objectives.
The YNGLF management contributes to the development of the national economy via incorporating social responsibility priorities into the organisation’s strategic objectives. This focus has increased YNGLF contractor Saudisation by 22% and supported localisation by procurement through local manufacturers. This approach is in line with the In-Kingdom Total Value Add Programme, Saudi Aramco’s initiative to support increased levels of localisation in the kingdom.
Moreover, YNGLF’s management is further committed to OE through the utilisation of an in-house platform, which interconnects systems into a fully functional comprehensive IT solution. “This platform, adopted by more than 30 organisations, opened new possibilities and powerful capabilities with its various features, to provide full insight of various processes’ performance across the organisation, thus enabling it to make safer and more profitable operational decisions,” said Khalid Ahmad, team member.
Leaders of excellent organisations effectively manage change and minimise risks. YNGLF utilises a dedicated process safety management dashboard and a digitised enterprise risk management system to identify and assess all potential risks. YNGLF crowned its outstanding safety performance by receiving the Gas Processors Association Award for operating without a lost-time accident for 4.5mn work hours.
Strategic planning
Top performing organisations develop, communicate and implement their strategic goals to enhance their competitive advantages and overall performance. “YNGLF utilises a logical and integrated system towards developing and updating the organisation’s three-year cycle business plan on an annual basis, while financial plans and performance are reported on a monthly basis,” said Ahmad Al Mogathawi, another team member.
To create a sustainable competitive advantage, YNGLF utilises a mix of performance indicators to enable the organisation to review the efficiency of key processes towards achieving strategic goals. Furthermore, YNGLF benchmarks its key performance indicators with best-in-class industries, through Solomon and APQC benchmarks, which identified YNGLF as a Tier-1 organisation.
Promoting a culture of excellence and creativity is vital for any organisation. The establishment of the Excellence and Innovation Centre, the first of its kind in an operating facility company-wide, is in line with the kingdom’s national transformation vision 2030 that considers technology as an essential enabler to boost the economy. The centre houses 3D printing, virtual reality and robotics capabilities.
The Excellence and Innovation Centre is also utilised to undertake regular knowledge-sharing sessions. With these initiatives YNGLF has maintained a top performer retention index at 100%, with employee engagement continuing to soar.
Focus on partnerships and stakeholders
Through a dedicated process focusing on partner and stakeholder satisfaction, YNGLF listens to clients’ challenges and works on providing appropriate and continuous support towards achieving mutual benefits. An example includes capitalising on existing piping networks to increase the LPG pool and maximise profits for all synergised neighbouring industries. YNGLF is the first organisation to deploy unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, technology corporate-wide, resulting in significant savings, while eliminating inspection down-time.
With the changing market’s dynamics, the energy sector must engage with partners to deliver creative solutions to meet energy needs. YNGLF has held a maintenance and reliability forum, including leading companies while, similar to TED Talks, the InnovX initiative was launched as a platform, galvanising YNGLF and the kingdom’s transformation, via showcasing Saudi Arabia’s renowned innovators.
Managing and optimising processes, products and services, through the effective implementation of OE, improves business performance in a truly sustainable manner.
For example, as an environmental protection initiative, a new low cost recovery scheme was identified to recover boil off ethane gas and route it as fuel gas at utilities boilers. With 40% flaring minimisation, the initiative won YNGLF the prestigious 2017 Energy Globe Award in addition to significant savings in capital and ethane flaring costs.
“We are entering an era where OE is the path forwards to keep us ahead of the curve”, says Faisal Al Subhi, YNGLF Manager. “As its business responds to changing market’s needs, YNGLF is fully committed to OE via the focus on partnerships, strengthening safety performance, enhancing profitability and reliability, adopting new innovation ideas and technologies while investing in human resources.
“Recognising that OE is the oil and gas Industry’s watchword, the organisation efforts will be backed up by conducting benchmarking with best-in-class organisations, with participation at national and international OE awards and venues, thus taking OE to new levels”.
