BMGI showcases PathHow for Businesses in Gulf Region to can Outperform

in, Process Excellence Week MENA 2012

As the Key Knowledge partner for Process Excellence Week 2012, held at Radisson Blu, Abu Dhabi on 10
th
&
11
th
Dec 2012, BMGI presented the model for Enabling Businesses to outperform using the process
excellence way with specific emphasis on the Energy and Utilities sector in the MENA which hold about 60 %
of the oil reserves and 45% of the natural gas reserves.
The event was organised by International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC) a global firm which holds
events for equipping business leaders with knowledge on industry trends, technological developments and the
regulatory landscape. The event saw practitioners of performance excellence practitioners across industries
from companies such as Halliburton, Q-Tel, Supreme Group, Etisalat, Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority,
Saudi Telecom, Equate Petroleum to name a few. The event had a bevy of speakers from various organizations
such as Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Dubai Customs, ADCO, DEWA, Rolls-Royce Energy, Maersk Qatar
Oil, Weir Oil & Gas and du.
Mr Naresh Raisinghani, chairman for the event and CEO & Executive Director, BMGI, in his presentation,
shared how business could outperform using the performance excellence way. He illustrated various models
on performance excellence and emphasized on high impact models ones likei.e. Lean, Six Sigma, and TPM
(specifically for 24*7 plants) which have gained a lot of interest and shown results across diverse industries.
Additionally, he shared that structured innovation has been a new focus area for businesses who which would
want to tackle the product/process innovation challenge for driving the next wave of growth. He shared that
Business Excellence Awards would need to evolve further to enhance their real impact. With a succinct
program level case study of Mount Carmel, he demonstrated how organisations which deploy the model of
Performance Excellence effectively can dramatically transform their business results and cultural aspects in 3
years-timeyears time period. He stressed the importance of
Based on BMGIs global research across geographies and industries Mr Raisinghani outlined the Critical Success
Factors, i.e. for creating a successful & sustained performance excellence program leading to a cultural
transformation. These includea an) engaged executive team, b) Strategic Priority based selection of
projectsselecting projects from the strategic priorities with sharp focus on business results, c) usage of a the
right rigor for the projects, and d) deployment of few Full Time top class Change Agents who work full
timebesides spreading the program across all employees for cultural transformation as essential for creating a
highly successful & sustained performance excellence program.

Mr Shahid Osmani, Quality Expert, Strategy & Corporate Excellence department Dubai Customs shared how
the firm had tried to align the organisation towards improving the services by using the Dubai Excellence
Model as an enabler. He shared how the act of looking through the eyes of customers (both internal and
external) can significantly contribute to creating effective and efficient processes on all elements of an
organisational value chain. He emphasised that to be able to fulfil the customers requirement end to end,
organisations would need to reorient themselves from the current silo based approach to a customer focussed
process based approach.
Reinforcing the importance of Change Management for Continuous improvement, Mr Sanjiv Upadhyay,
Manager for Lean Manufacturing at Weir Oil & Gas, shared how Weir was overcoming barriers encountered
in implementation of Lean across the organisation. He shared the importance of creating a sense of shared
need, vision, plan and capability, reinforcing the need for an engaged executive team as Mr Raisinghanis had
identified. he further stated that Leadership team should dedicate time for ensuring the success and
sustenance of these continuous improvement initiatives. He further shared how mapping individual
Comment [V1]: What is Du? Is it a company? I
am asking as I am not sure.
Formatted: Font: Bold
Comment [V2]: Is Mount Carmel an
organization?
stakeholders resistance on their desire and capability to change can help put in better communications plan
for each category of peoples attitude to change .Picking up on Mr Raisinghanis point on leadership, he further
stated that Leadership team should dedicate time for ensuring the success and sustenance of these continuous
improvement initiatives. As if continuing on the same topic, endorsing Mr Raisinghanis views on successful
deployment resulting from tying Operational Excellence initiatives with Business Strategy, Amit Chanana
Global Process Consultant, HSBC shared the organisation maturity life cycle model. This was specifically
focused for the organizations in their journey of achieving operational excellence through strategic
deployment. He emphasised on the importance of strategic clarity, customer focus, metric identification
(Transforming strategic initiatives into measurable metrics), performance management and continuous
improvement methodologies adopted by various organisations.

Expanding Substantiatingon Mr Raisinghanis view on the criticality of of building a foundation with the right
rigor to drive excellence initiatives as a critical factor, Mr Nouman Rana, Regional Lean & EHS Manager, Weir
Oil & Gas highlighted the importance of several techniques and the rigor used as a part of process excellence.
Resource Optimization, lead time reduction and reducing inventories could be addressed by specific tools like
Value Stream Mapping, Resource Planning & Scheduling, Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA), OEE to name a
few. He shared the practices followed in successfully implementing Manufacturing Process Management
program in Weir Oil & Gas. He highlighted the importance of several techniques used as a part of
manufacturing process management like Value Stream Mapping, Workflow planning , Resource Planning &
Scheduling, Work Instructions, Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA), OEE concepts as some of the techniques
used for optimizing resources, reducing lead time, shorten production time & reducing inventories.
Would the rigor of the tools alone be sufficient to drive a process excellence? How do we set a target for
ourselves? On creating a world class process, Ms. Noora Al Katheeri, Head of Business Excellence &
Requirements at Emirates Nuclear Energy Coorporation (ENEC) provided a perspective on shared how ENEC
had used benchmarking as tools to drive process improvements. She dived in to shared the approach her team
had adopted for benchmarking such as identification of processes and partners to benchmark (ideally from the
same industry if feasible), creating a set of expectations on benefits both quantitative & qualitative, selection
of right cross-functional team and where required establishing a data collection system to ensure appropriate
data is collected. Ms Noora highlighted stressed that best practices of other organizations may not be
necessarily relevant to your organization and while emulating organizations should be aware that they need to
be customized to produce value and in certain cases may not produce the desired results.

If Mr Raisinghani highlighted the critical success factors, what are the pitfalls to be avoided? To further add to
the organizational planning on Process Excellence initiatives Mr. Mohamed Daoud, Manager (Projects &
Quality) Engineering & Projects ADCO answered this question in his presentation stating that well tried and
tested concepts and processes are essential. He underlined the importance of building & monitoring a quality
plan for the projects. detailed about the major pitfalls that needs to be avoided during the project
management in Oil & Gas industries and shared well tried and tested processes and concepts on from
building and monitoring a quality plan for the project in hand.
Illustrating the value perspective in establishing Process Excellence framework, Mr. Naresh Raisinghani
pointed that organizations has to create a balance between process and expected results signifying the
importance of tie up process improvements with key business strategies. He also highlighted the advantages
reaped by organization following structured innovation as an alternate to harness the team power of
innovative thinking to create equivalent and powerful outcomes equivalent to individual contributors. Comment [V3]: No particularly new point made,
I feel. This can be added
Would process improvements alone suffice for sustaining growth? Supporting Mr Raisinghanis perspective on
structured innovation in order to harness the power of teams innovative thinking, Mr Pierre Nader, Senior
Director & Head of Process Excellence & TQM, du shared that organization has to consider dual perspectives
for sustaining growth of process improvement and applied innovation. He pointed that process improvement
can definitely take organisations to some excellence levels post which organizations have to reinvent their
growth S curves for reaching newer business orbits and then again use process improvements to excel in the
new attained orbit. He shared examples and benefits of institutionalizing applied innovation within his
organization.
Endorsing Mr Raisinghanis views on successful deployment resulting from tying Operational Excellence
initiatives with Business Strategy, Amit Chanana Global Process Consultant, HSBC shared with us the
organisation maturity life cycle model for organisations, which are on path of achieving operational excellence
through strategic deployment. He emphasised on the importance of strategic clarity, customer focus, metric
identification (Transforming strategic initiatives into measurable metrics), performance management and
continuous improvement methodologies adopted by various organisations.
On creating a world class process, Ms. Noora Al Katheeri, Head of Business Excellence & Requirements at
Emirates Nuclear Energy Coorporation (ENEC) shared how ENEC had used benchmarking as tools to drive
process improvements. She dived in to share the approach her team had adopted for benchmarking such as
identification of processes and partners to benchmark (ideally from the same industry if feasible), creating a
set of expectations on benefits both quantitative & qualitative, selection of right cross-functional team and
where required establishing a data collection system to ensure appropriate data is collected. Ms Noora
highlighted that best practices of other organizations may not be necessarily relevant to your organization and
while emulating organizations should be aware that they need to be customized to produce value and in
certain cases may not produce the desired results.
In all the rush to improve processes, should we take our eyes off Safety? Given the fact that a gas leakage
has the potential to become a disaster for Oil & Gas companies and the Environment, Ms. Christina Horn,
Blackbelt Project Manager , Maersk Oil Qatar shared a different take ,i.e.,reminded the industry to focus
focusing on Safety compared to other organizational focus areas like profitability and productivity, given the
fact that a gas leakage has the potential to become a big disaster for Oil & Gas companies & the environment
at large. She showcased how by crossing the barriers of departmental silos organisations can produce dramatic
improvements, by just creating effective cross-functional communication channels and looking at process flow
instead of departmental flow. She shared herThrough a multi-year excellent case to demonstrate how Maersk
was analyzing and replacing the systems with better valves using cross-functional departmental synergies and
working towards higher safety standards, she showcased demonstration of dramatic improvements. She
showcased how bBy crossing the barriers of departmental silos, Ms Horn showed organisationsorganizations
can produce dramatic improvements, by just creating effective cross-functional communication channels and
looking at process flow instead of departmental flow.
Mr Wajahat Mehdi, Regional Manager Quality, Process Excellence & HSE, Rolls-Royce highlighted some of
the process improvement challenges in Middle East which included low levels of awareness on improvement
concepts among senior management, High ROI demands on Change Management Initiatives, Shortage of
experienced practitioners and low level of trust on external service providers . He shared several solutions
such as structuring result based equations with service providers, instilling rigorous project management and
targeting immediate pain areas to instill management confidence.
Considering that the GCC region is geared towards some of the large scale developmental projects, Mr Safdar
Hussain, Research Major Programme Management, University of Oxford, UK introduced the concepts of
Mega Projects (US $ 1 billion or more) management. He shared shocking data with a study of over 200 mega
projects with several like Channel Tunnel, the Millennium Dome, Kolkatas Metro etc. having larger cost
overruns, schedule delays & benefit Shortfalls greater than 50%. He ascribed that at the heart of these
overruns is the reductionist approach that is the traditional tools were additive in approach which lead to
inaccurate forecasting. He stressed the importance of establishing an accurate forecasting techniques and
tools and described the reference class forecasting model which emphasizes on evaluating existing projects
with similar profiles and then building correct forecasts. He summarised by sharing that the 6 pilot projects
taken by Oxford University using this modified technique had all delivered as per the plan.
The day 2 sessions event finally ended with the participants forming two interactive groups, the interactions of
which were led by Mr Safdar Hussain, Research Major, University of Oxford UK & Mr Fahmi Abdein, Senior
Manager- Business Excellence, DEWA respectively. The interactions gave the participants an opportunity to
discuss their specific issues and come up with potential takeaways for improving their organizational
performance excellence roadmap.
About BMGI

Breakthrough Management Group International (BMGI), global consulting firms with a strong focus on
delivering results, partners with organizations in various stages of their business life cycle to transform their
business performance. BMGI is recognized as the world leader in harnessing the power of cutting edge
techniques in the area of Innovation, Strategy, Problem Solving and Business Transformation for achieving
tangible business results. BMGI enables businesses drive growth and improve profitability. Headquartered in
the US, BMGI has offices in 13 countries around the globe. BMGI has delivered cumulative benefits to its
clients worth several billion dollars with an ROI of 5:1 to 20:1.

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Mr Naresh Raisinghani
Event

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Media contact details
Deepak Panda,
Breakthrough Management Group International (BMGI),
+91 (22) 4002 0045, +91 9987303383
deepakp@bmgindia.com
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