Challenges

The Al Taweelah alumina refinery is EGA’s first and the first of its kind in the UAE. Accordingly, EGA needed to develop new systems to cater for alumina production.

Building any greenfield alumina refinery is an ambitious project. Even more so when it requires a global recruitment program to supplement the limited existing alumina capability and technical knowledge in a country with no history in the industry.

The EGA operations team were responsible for completing the majority of the operational readiness (OR) program work. The team was drawn from operational backgrounds rather than greenfield projects.

Solutions

An operational readiness planning-and-execution solution was deployed that included an overarching approach and the detailed plans required to effectively develop, execute, budget, and resource the operational readiness activities.

The alumina-project-execution and OR capability of the HATCH team strengthened the EGA Operations team's capabilities, creating a deep and extensive knowledge base to draw upon.

The execution of the plan was facilitated and supported by leveraging the Hatch Operational Readiness Management System (ORMS), an intuitive, robust, and secure cloud-based application to easily track deliverables and manage & report progress.

Highlights

Implementing HATCH’s OR planning and execution management tools enabled the required level of rigour to be applied without creating an onerous administrative workload for the client team.

The ease of using the Hatch Operational Readiness Management System (ORMS) made it simple for the client team to acquire basic project management skills.

Using the Hatch ORMS system, all users could easily update progress on deliverables, view performance, and raise change notices through the system’s user-friendly interface and smart built-in project governance.

Involvement in plan development and the transparency of self-reported performance data fostered a strong sense of ownership and commitment.

Strong functional and cross-functional engagement in work execution and reporting in ORMS drove acceptance of accountability for OR performance.

Compliance or deviation from the agreed plan was easily identified through live dashboards, a war room, and Steering Committee meetings. These drove remedial action and limited the taking-on of significant risk.

EGA’s inclusive, open-minded approach to OR supported by ORMS enabled users from outside EGA to be assigned work and report alongside the EGA team, providing a single point of truth.

The EGA Operations team were well-prepared and ready to take on the challenges of commissioning, start-up, and ramp-up.