[00:00:00] Gary Fischer, PE: So we got a great launch for today, and we’re gonna move forward with our first presentation. If our friends from Malaysia can turn on their cameras and audio and get ready to present. I’ll get you guys introduced. There we are. Got ’em both. All right. Thanks guys for staying up so late. I don’t know what time it is in Malaysia, but I know it’s late.
[00:00:25] Gary Fischer, PE: So thank you for staying up to make this possible. We’re eager to hear from our friends at Petronas who have been on this multi-year journey to test and implement project production management and their organization. We’re gonna get that update this morning or today. Some brief introductions starting with Al-Azahary.
[00:00:45] Gary Fischer, PE: Who’s currently leading a team to drive innovation and transforming Petronas Group Project delivery has 17 years of experience in the industry currently spearheading the project production management implementation. He’s also playing a really key role in shaping Malaysia’s oil and gas players in the methodology to to adopt project production management, improve performance.
[00:01:08] Gary Fischer, PE: I should also note Al is a former recipient of the prestigious. PPI Technical Achievement Award. Al welcome and along with him is Hakim Tasir, who is currently an analyst with project delivery and technology sector and Petronas. He is more than seven years of working experience in the, industry.
[00:01:29] Gary Fischer, PE: He’s involved in plant change and capital projects is construction. Project engineer role Hakim is also supporting the deployment of project production management in Petronas, as well as promoting the use of these methods in the Malaysia oil and gas industry. Guys, before I turn it over to you, I wanna let our audience know, please, if you have questions for, these folks, please drop in ’em into chat and we’ll try to get to those after their prepared remarks.
[00:01:55] Gary Fischer, PE: So I’ll turn over to you guys.
[00:01:59] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Firstly, I would like to thank Gary and Project Production Institute for the opportunity for us from Petronas to share in this 2025 12th Annual Symposium of PPI. Tonight I will be presenting together with Hakim my senior executive. Mr. Muaz, our principal who carbon commissioner is supposed to join us but he can somehow because of the, is currently in, in different time zone.
[00:02:34] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So it’s not possible for him to join. But anyway, this is Indeed, the third time we present in, in project in PPI symposium. And I think it’s been Gary mentioned my experience about 17 years of, working. And now actually I am already 21 years. So this that’s, how the time already flies.
[00:03:03] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: And hopefully it will be a beneficial sharing and reflection from our journey. Our from Petronas in implementation of PPM. Alright, so again, I am beginning our presentation with this picture. It is evergreen for us. We had a reputation no longer the champion of the world, right?
[00:03:38] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Petronas Mercedes team. But we had a reputation of being the champion of the world. That already changed. We already transferred the, world championship to other constructors. But what remains is that we are still striving, we are still exploring ways to improve our project delivery performance.
[00:04:02] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: It is still a pretty much an important part of our journey in Petronas. Our continuous effort and pursuit to, to improve our project delivery, I believe is similar for with a lot of us in this attending this symposium tonight.
[00:04:29] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Alright,
[00:04:30] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: so we begin our, journey in, in implementation, implementing project production management, actually about five years ago back in the, during COVID time so, from virtual engagement in capability building, I still remember the, long night classes that we had with Roberto James and others.
[00:05:04] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: In the PPM bootcamp that we had during COVID times until now, we already deploy and implement in real actual project sites, continue to, deploy PPM until today with, our team and we will share. In overall our insights from what we experience through the journey. This is the reflection, actually, this annual symposium.
[00:05:41] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Give me the opportunity to reflect. So this is first time actually we, chat back the whole journey that we started in 2021. Until now, after five years in in the transformation world, right? So basically we presented in 2021 annual symposium, then two years after 2023, and now in 25, it’s somehow becoming our biannual activity.
[00:06:20] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: I’m hoping there will be 2027 for us to, share some other achievement that we have right throughout the period. These are the numbers of project that we already engaged, deployed, and implemented PPM, right? And the massive value that we created actually, in terms of value creation. These numbers are very validated and verified by each of the project stakeholders that we, deal with, right?
[00:06:55] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Beginning in, in total, over 400 million of, cumulative value creation in terms of cash generation better earlier production saving. Project costs in terms of reducing capacity and, resources, as well as cost avoidance, avoiding unnecessary interruption to production and our business operation through better project delivery.
[00:07:32] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: And this is partly in significant way contributed. From PPM implementation. Alright last time in 2023, I presented about the proof of concept and proof of value stage that we’ve, been through and as much as we reflect and looking back and what we have now, what we are experienced now, we are now evolving into scaling up stage, it’s no longer about proving a value. We are firm with the value what PPM can deliver. Now we are in the stage of integrating relevant solutions and take cash with other best practices to deliver fit forward solution. After this, we I will also share some of case study or highlighted deployment projects.
[00:08:34] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: That we had that related to this stage of integrated solution, right? Previously, it is not that easy for us to sell PPM in a way, right? To encourage implementation, right. Then it started to become an adoption by choice. PMT The project management team started to ask for one. It is the real intention by, project team to implement PPM.
[00:09:10] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: But now in, we are in the stage of building trusted partnership with various project team, and we have now built a reputation on excellent track records in supporting various project teams delivering better project results. And in terms of, deployment, maybe we are not looking into too many projects now.
[00:09:42] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Even, a number of projects actually reducing in especially re with reflect related to this year, our CapEx portfolio, but our strategic deployment approach. It’s actually now focusing more on the impact. How much value can we created? Maybe a big capital projects, with, massive investment.
[00:10:13] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Sometimes even though it’s the CapEx is big, but smaller CapEx that directly impacting plant production is actually bring more value in terms of focus. To deploy a robust project control solutions. And in terms of the transformation impact to people, right? We are now looking into, I think, giving birth or developing more active believers for ppm.
[00:10:53] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: These are. Passionate adopters who take pride on delivering better projects by implementing understanding production control properly, right? Adopting operation science in their daily work and, deliver better forms. All right. This. I’m going to do the some of the deployment highlights.
[00:11:22] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: We are going to share three projects, actually key studies that from, various deployments that we had this pre-selected for us to share with you all tonight. First is a project Citrus. This is a Brownfield project replacement of aging cooling towers. So it involved demo erection in commissioning of a new cooling tower without plan interruption, right?
[00:11:50] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: What we did in this project that completed early this year is the integration of multiple digital construction solution, and we name it as integrated digital constructed construction solution. Where we utilize advanced packaging as the foundational scope breakdown and establishing the initial powerful concession.
[00:12:21] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Then from the right foundation that we have, we do all the mappings, the detailed mapping of tasks. This is where we engage with down to the subcontractors level. To establish the, detailed production system and utilize PPM as the key schedule optimization engine. So on top of that, we also leveraging for the scheduling as a simulation for us to make iteration of improvement.
[00:13:01] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: On work sequence where actually can we improve and optimize further in terms of sequence. And this in insight from 4D simulation is feedback in to, to our PPM production system model and continuously improve for us to optimize. And on top of that all we also, leverage extended reality simulation.
[00:13:34] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: And this is something that, that impactfully improve communication at various level from the stakeholder down to the working level to have a common view of how are we going to construct and go through the project execution. Through extended real reality visualization. I’m going to share you with the simulation that we
[00:14:10] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: establish in extended reality hopefully is clear, right?
[00:14:18] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: This actual simulation that we had for Project Citrus. And the performance of our performance as we look back in terms of committed schedule with the, is actually 14 months for us to complete this tower replacement. But perform team, I think initially have the set baseline schedule of 12 months through PPM.
[00:14:46] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Actually, we optimized the schedule down to 10 months and. The project team actually to get them with us in supporting them with that, with continuous feedback throughout the journey. The team actually completed the project within 10 months and at least four months lead of completed schedule with project with the early owners, and for this project the, stakeholders, fund managers very satisfied.
[00:15:21] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Very, happy. To the extent that the he mentioned to me, that this is the first time in three years we have, we see a project that is completed on time, on budget, and on schedule.
[00:15:38] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So this is project
[00:15:40] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: that,
[00:15:41] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: that we live the, very, very good impression for stakeholders and the
[00:15:47] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: project team as well, very much.
[00:15:50] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Taking part of the good performance achievement that they have. And it’s all level, not only on side, the contractor side, the subcontractor side, we are looking back at the journey and pretty much very, much proud of what we achieve together.
[00:16:17] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: For the second highlight of the project, I would like to pass the floor to my partner. I Mr. To continue with the second and
[00:16:33] M Hakim Mat Tasir: highlight over to your. Thank you Al. Firstly, I would like to thank PPI for the opportunity given to me. I think tonight I might be the youngest panelist. So I feel very small tonight representing this.
[00:16:55] M Hakim Mat Tasir: Without wasting any more time, let me proceed with the next deployment case and highlights of what we have done recently. So the next. One would be Kasawari hookup campaign. We called HUC where we take the application of PPM in order to optimize our offshore planning. So some key facts about this project is that Kasawari project is one of the largest CPP or central processing platform that we have ever built.
[00:17:30] M Hakim Mat Tasir: It is recognized as the heaviest topside we have ever produced in Malaysia and recognized in Malaysia book of, so typically during the hookup campaign, the works that being done is that we do this work of offshore, which is involving the connection between. The facilities, as you may see from the presentation there at the picture on the bottom left, there is a connection between the central processing platform.
[00:18:03] M Hakim Mat Tasir: The drilling platform and the flare, right? So this works between the facilities being executed offshore. So during this duration, why we take the deployment and focusing on this duration is that this is the duration where most of our course is being focusing on meaning a daily, on this offshore execution campaign.
[00:18:33] M Hakim Mat Tasir: Might cost you the whole optimization and efforts being done on shore, right? The, this, that, the cost, the manpower, the resources that you spend offshore is very significant, right? Even a one day delay can consume all the optimization that being done onshore. So the differentiated approach that we’ve done on this project is that.
[00:19:00] M Hakim Mat Tasir: Typically when we have the main schedule as a baseline, as you can see from the slide on top of it, is the current plan that is what we call as baseline being put by the owner ourself, that we are going to complete this work by 26 April in 231 days. So what we did is that we go deeper into the schedule.
[00:19:27] M Hakim Mat Tasir: We crossed the line of the transaction between owner, contractor and subcontractor. I think thanks to Muaz as well as the principle that is driving the adoption of PPM in this project. So we work with the subcontractor in which the work is being done by them. So they prepare a document, we call a job cards, which consists of all the activities that we, that need to be done on offshore.
[00:19:55] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So these documents are being consumed by PPM engine, right? And we do a simulation and. Model it, the production system out of that document. So by just doing the mapping of that system, we already anticipate that, okay, how we plan our work is not feasible, right? So it’s already. It’s already delayed without doing anything, but just doing the mapping of the job cuts that need to be done, so now what the optimization gave us is that by not adding any more resources, by not adding any more equipment into the system, by just doing the WIP control, we are able to reduce the duration by up to three, four days. The. Driver on this project. Muaz take it as the as the believer.
[00:20:53] M Hakim Mat Tasir: As a believer, it drives the adoption of managing the WIP and making sure the production system is going smooth and not starting the work if you are not able to complete it. So this insight is being institutionalized by him, and he makes sure that this is being implemented offshore, right?
[00:21:14] M Hakim Mat Tasir: By controlling this, we are only able to reduce around 34 days and some of the optimization by making sure that we allocate to the right resources. At the right time, we are able to squeeze additional 20 more days which resulted to a total of 54 days ahead of schedule. Meaning we are not delayed by that for 54 days.
[00:21:40] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So we avoid the 54 days of potential extended offshore campaigns, which will cost us millions if it happen. We successfully deliver and get the first gas out of this Kasawari gas field as we see from the news on the right side there. So that is the second application of PPM, which we get the most impact from the application.
[00:22:09] M Hakim Mat Tasir: Now moving forward to the next one. This the application of PPM, which we as like Al mentioned, is integrated with multiple initiative together. So in this case it is. Integrated with Scrum application, right? As you may already know, scrum application is typically being done for software development, right?
[00:22:39] M Hakim Mat Tasir: But for this time we do it for project execution. Meaning some of the frameworks you can see some of the terminology of product backlog. Sprint planning are being introduced into the application, right? So you, for this project, you can imagine a typical war room in which I think all of us here have the opportunity to be in a project where.
[00:23:09] M Hakim Mat Tasir: A very conflicting situation happening between the owner and contractor, a project manager that comes in and slam his fist on the table and take and saying, what is happening on my project? Why these things are not being delivered as promised. So the differentiated approach that we brings into this conversation is that when they called us to observe the war room and provide feedback for them to improve.
[00:23:36] M Hakim Mat Tasir: The first question that we asked in that session is that who are attending the meeting? Do we have the right person who decide what activity need to be done tomorrow in that meeting? Just by asking the question, we actually prompting the PPC application in a way, right? Production planning and getting the people that actually inside the meeting.
[00:24:03] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So the project team, the next session that we have with the project team, they call
[00:24:15] M Hakim Mat Tasir: making sure that he gives the information and what activity need to be done tomorrow, right? When we do this application inside the daily meeting. And the conversation, that happens between inside the war room changes, right? So the agenda and the question being asked is different.
[00:24:40] M Hakim Mat Tasir: We ask the contractor what are our commitments that being committed yesterday? What are things that not completed? And, we check back if it is not completed, what are the reasons? So these are the applications where. We fit into the Scrum application daily and, keep on deliberately doing the application doing the work daily, right?
[00:25:11] M Hakim Mat Tasir: And tracking our commitment in making sure that we are able to commit and complete this work every day. So if, let’s say you promised to do two yesterday, you have to make sure you complete two. If you’re not able to complete two, the next day, you have to commit more. And making sure we are able to back on track, right?
[00:25:30] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So these are the, small things that we introduce inside the sprint planning and making sure that we are able to recover. And this resulted to 37 days ahead for our, offshore campaign, for this project called, right? Similarly the campaign is being done for EC and at the bottom there called Samarang.
[00:25:55] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So once they get the application and the impact enjoyed in connect, they replicate to their Samaritan project, which is being done by them as well, and they are able to even accelerate even further to 68 days ahead of the schedule. So I this is where the most impactful application of PPM that we have seen.
[00:26:18] M Hakim Mat Tasir: So moving forward for hookup and offshore execution campaign, I think by default the believers are going to make it as a business as usual, right? This is how the new way of doing things for hookup campaign is being championed by our our team. I think that’s all for me, Al, back to you.
[00:26:43] M Hakim Mat Tasir: Thanks, Hakim.
[00:26:45] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: All right, so moving to the end of our presentation some key takeaways and insights on challenges and opportunities moving forward, right? I think the first thing I would like to talk tonight is about the, quest for reliable, predictive and prescriptive insights.
[00:27:10] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So this is continuously we, keep getting this this pinpoint or requests a demand from various stakeholders of projects, right on how can we predict. How, when we had a prescriptive insight, you can tell, raise a sharp suggestion or recommendation on how to prevent project delay.
[00:27:41] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So, I would say that the opportunities moving forward is for, is to intensify the, effort to institutionalize PPM analytics. As part of the main mainstream project control insights and performance indicators as of, so now it’s still a bit separated in a way, right from the effort for that we did to introduce this two project control.
[00:28:11] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: But it’s still yet to be a mainstream project control performance indicator. For example, in terms of, line of balance or the concept where we engage with, some project teams. It’s just a simple application of, how we ensure the transition from one activities to another is smooth, right?
[00:28:40] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: In order to have the whole production system productivity improve instead of just looking at one. Welding productivity only coating or NDT productivity as a separate activities productivity. So that is the, first part in terms of the, continuous quest for reliable predictive and prescriptive analytics.
[00:29:11] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Second, I think related to what, presented by Todd just now is about integrating practical robotics, IOTs and automation technologies. We actually in Petronas also some of basic robotics implementation. It’s not that easy for us to get through. We begin with some robotic.
[00:29:44] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Blasting and painting, for example, it takes about two years for us to push the adoption until now become a business as usual. But we see the significant improvement in terms of schedule by application of robotics to the tune of more than 50% of schedule being shortened, right?
[00:30:11] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Now we are also through our, various deployment of, robotics related project execution. We also leverage on PPM to optimize further and, squeeze more values out of limitation and significantly improve further the project schedule and execution.
[00:30:40] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: The third and last point also somehow related to what
[00:30:49] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Todd mentioned just now and, is impressive for us to see how the technology has evolved in terms of artificial intelligence and generative ai.
[00:31:03] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: We are actually now seriously focusing on leveraging gen AI and agentic AI to deliver significantly faster project, and we the mandate that we have is to reduce at least 50% of the FEL duration and overall project execution. This is should be done without sacrificing quality and accuracy.
[00:31:31] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So we need to manage the hallucination problem with AI and putting the right context in gen gen ai so that it will deliver the right ingested data as well as insights, right? But what we what, we see that. This is an opportunity for us to leverage on operation science as a guiding principle to determine relevant process design to be accelerated, right?
[00:32:04] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Because if we see about fail process, for example, FEL front end loading, there’s a lot of activities from, the beginning, initiation and the framing. Concepts select the engineering until we get the Finding FID pack, right? So where actually should we focus on within the production system of developing fail deliverables, right?
[00:32:39] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Focus to focus on application of AI first so that it makes the maximum impact towards the overall duration. And this is actually with con continuous focus for us to maximize value, right? Possible. We with, the power for the compute power from a ai, we can embed the simulate variability situation, even iterate optimum capacity, as well as inventory, right?
[00:33:18] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So that we can deliver a better, a short, faster project, right? But at the same time, robust deliverable and superior performance. So that’s all we have for tonight. Yeah, I keep mentioning tonight because it is very late midnight in Malaysia, right? We are in this journey as a part of a marathon process.
[00:33:55] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: So, it’s not a, sprint. Yeah, we had some sprints in, in, in our agile delivery. But the thing is that what we do consistently and throughout these five years is essentially in, yeah. Beyond. It is actually a fulfilling journey, right? And it is something that we cherish together with within our project team, deployment team as well as our partners and contractors and vendors to continue to improve project one project at a time.
[00:34:37] M Al-Azahary B A Sani: Until we really transform the whole project delivery and execution. So that’s all from us in Petronas hopefully is beneficial sharing and, trigger some, insights for you to, emulate or take were appropriate. Back to you, Gary.
[00:35:05] Gary Fischer, PE: All right. Thank you guys. That was really interesting and exciting to see your progress and the impact that it’s having on value.
[00:35:15] Gary Fischer, PE: You’re really setting the stage there for others to keep up. You’re way ahead of the game on getting this integrated into the fabric, your company and just the way you do business. So that’s exciting to see. Thank you for staying up late for us. And you can stay, you can hang on if you want, as long as you can, as long as you can.
[00:35:36] Gary Fischer, PE: But of course, this thing’s all recorded, so you thank you again. Thank you very much.
