Enhancing Management of Change System for Operational Excellence
Authors: Al-Nabhan Talal , Yusuf Tarique Mohammad , Al-Hennawi Hani 
Published: November 2018

Changes are the key driver and the important part of Operational Excellence (OE). However, mismanaged changes have been considered as one of the major contributory factors of several catastrophic incidents, preventing which is essential for Operational Excellence. This paper highlights the necessity of developing a system that may ensure managing the implementation of Management of Change (MOC) procedure in effective, efficient, consistent and dependable manner. Some of the award-winning initiatives taken in this regard, at one of the oilfield assets in Kuwait, are also shared.

E&P companies do have MOC procedure; yet incidents and near misses attributable to inadequate MOC systems are reported. Several factors, ranging from underlying limited motivation to complications related to organizational set-up, may lead to inadequacy in the MOC system. In this paper, motivation for MOC is proposed beyond regulatory compliance: viz. attainment & sustenance of Operational Excellence that include maximizing profit, minimizing costs, incorporating competitive essence, and adhering to responsible behavior. With such approach, both the spirit and the mechanical process of conducting MOCs, become important to everybody, at management and staff levels, which is crucial for overcoming the challenge of attaining an adequate MOC system that may ensure implementation of MOC procedure in efficient, effective, consistent and dependable manner. In order to attain an adequate MOC system, essential features of an MOC system is briefly reviewed; some practical concerns are highlighted and solutions are proposed.

Despite availability of MOC procedure, focus might be limited in implementing the procedure for individual changes, and the system may remain weak for managing numerous MOCs. Several practical factors, like involvement of large number of multi-disciplinary staff, each focused on its discipline related portion of an MOC, with insufficient holistic approach; transfer of staff; paper based MOC process; and focus on ‘compliance’ of MOC procedure overlooking quality & intended objective may lead to ineffective, inefficient, inconsistent & unreliable implementation of the MOC procedure. Therefore, adopting appropriate management system for handling MOCs with a life-cycle approach is recommended. It is highlighted that a simple and easy-to-implement system is better than what can't be implemented in practice. Several initiatives that were successfully undertaken for attaining an enhanced MOC System, are presented; which include: (i) developing electronic desktop application, utilizing in-house resources, (ii) defining KPI, (iii) developing Dashboard for monitoring & control and (iv) developing enhanced MOC Register, with the provision of recording full life-cycle of MOCs.

This paper provides motivation for managing MOCs in efficient and effective manner for Operational Excellence and disseminates experience of the successfully implemented initiatives, which involved expenditure of minimal resources, for the benefit of the industry.