Description of Project
The client is the project delivery arm of a National Oil Company (NOC) which has 4,000+ employee with more than 40 years of operation experience in oil and gas projects delivery. In 2015, the client had experienced a corporate-wide transformation exercise which merged the upstream & downstream project delivery operations into a single entity that assumed the role of asset representative to undertake “end-to-end” project delivery for the assets’ owner. Post-transformation, there are multiple pain points stemmed out from the project delivery process.
Working with 27Group and one of our partners – a Netherlands-based engineering consulting firm, the client sought to pursue a business process improvement exercise that streamline the project delivery processes of the organization.
Full Story
As the project delivery arm of a NOC, the client has been delivering oil and gas infrastructure projects across the globe over the last few decades. From project framing to front-end-loading (FEL), execution to start-up and operation, the client undertakes end-to-end project delivery for all oil and gas projects of the company, such as oil rig, petrochemical and refinery plants etcetera.
During the post-transformation and upon merger of the upstream and downstream project delivery operations, the client faced challenges along the whole project delivery process. Firstly, there was no clear oversight on the project level issues from the top management level and there was gaps to alarm the management level relating matters which need urgent decision. There was lack of clarity on the portfolio management strategy, resulting in poor FEL design and reworks which cost more time and resources. Ineffective knowledge management where best practices and learnings from past projects were not applied in new projects. Lack of tracking mechanism and change management especially on engineering design which caused rework and delay in projects.
With our comprehensive approach of business process management and the substantial expertise in oil and gas project delivery from our partner firms, 27Group has redefined and enhanced the functions of core departments and its sub-divisions in the client’s organization to drive excellence in all stages of project delivery.
Key Outcomes
The 27Group begin with a detailed analysis to uncover the pain points along the project delivery processes. In this regard, we have orchestrated a three-days focus group discussion with more than 200 project managers and engineers from the client’s organization across various department to have a detailed walk-through that cover each step from project framing to handover. This was the first-ever chance these project managers were given a platform to provide their feedback on the organization-wide business process after transformation and merger of upstream and downstream operations. With this, the team created a pool of database that contained the genuine opinions from working level. Build upon the information from the database, the team had conducted detailed analysis and screening of the 200+ pain points faced by the project managers.
Another facet of the business process improvement exercise is to uplift the client’s project and program delivery to Top Quartile (top 25%) of the industry. Leveraging on the rich experience of our partner firms in consultancy for international oil and gas company and benchmarking data on some of the top oil and gas companies in the world, the team had documented a comprehensive set of best practices in areas such as portfolio design, program management, project oversight, knowledge learning and resource planning for oil and gas projects.
As a critical measure to drive the excellence in all stages of project delivery, a new division called Central Stewardship were recommended as the project management office / special taskforce that takes on the responsibilities to ensure effective departmental interface, stakeholder management, project performance tracking, continuous improvement and resource management.
With careful analysis on the “As-Is” situation, benchmarking on the international best practices and internal aspiration on areas for improvement, we had developed a set of “To-Be” business processes in the form of swim-lane diagrams which outlined the process steps and responsibilities of individual departments along the whole project delivery process. Recommendations were also made to curate the organization structure and manpower strategy of this Central Stewardship to ensure the positions will be taken up by competent and right personnel.
By the end of the project, the team had developed a detailed roll-out plan for each of the “To-Be” business process anticipated to increase the overall productivity by approximately 20% in the form of time and cost saving.
Important Notice
*We take our clients’ confidentiality seriously. While we keep their names anonymous, the results are real.
