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Operational Excellence: Managing Performance in the Oil, Gas & Petrochemical Industry

A programme on Operational Excellence (OPEX), a holistic approach to sustainable profitability and performance improvement across the Oil, Gas & Petrochemical industry.

5 Days

Programme overview

Many improvement initiatives fail because of a fragmented approach to the alignment and execution of practitioner activities. Operational Excellence (OPEX) supports sustainable profitability and growth by adopting a holistic approach to improvement.

Studies within the Oil & Gas industry have reported that world-class operators can achieve benefits including higher facility reliability, lower maintenance costs, reduced safety incidents, and increased utilisation of staff on value-adding activities.

This programme equips participants with the knowledge, skills and behavioural competencies required to support an operational excellence programme and contribute to improved organisational performance.

OPEX succeeds or fails on integration: a Six Sigma initiative in one department, a Lean project in another and a KPI framework imposed from above rarely add up to sustainable performance if they are never connected to a single strategic model. This programme gives participants that connective model, from strategy deployment through performance management, process excellence, tracking and the team culture that sustains it, purpose-built for Oil, Gas & Petrochemical operating environments.

Why this programme matters

Improvement effort that is not linked to organisational strategy, measured consistently and owned by engaged teams tends to produce isolated wins that fade once the initiative's champion moves on. Operational Excellence treats improvement as a single, holistic system, strategy, performance measurement, process discipline and culture working together, which is what allows the reliability, cost and safety gains reported by world-class operators to be sustained rather than one-off.

Learning objectives

  • Prioritise and link improvement activities to organisational strategic objectives.
  • Manage operational performance using balanced measures and targets.
  • Engage stakeholders to collectively remove waste and optimise the whole value stream.
  • Select appropriate methods and tools within an improvement framework.
  • Influence organisational culture and manage change to support OPEX practices.

Key programme highlights

  • OPEX model and application in the Oil, Gas & Petrochemical industry
  • Importance, benefits and necessity of OPEX practices
  • Strategy deployment through tools such as Hoshin Planning
  • Performance management using KPIs and the Balanced Scorecard
  • Problem-solving tools and techniques, including Six Sigma/DMAIC, Lean and 8D
  • Tools and techniques for process excellence and statistical process control
  • Success factors that drive sustainable performance, including culture and change management

Training methodology

The programme combines facilitator-led interactive sessions with practical application through individual and group activities, and discussion and reflection based on delegates' real-life experiences. The training manual provides a reference guide to the tools and methods covered.

Who should attend

  • Professionals across the organisation, from C-level executives to those in day-to-day operations
  • Business Analysts
  • Operations Management Personnel
  • Field Supervisors
  • Engineers
  • Technicians

Organisational impact

  • Holistic thinking
  • Avoidance of sub-optimisation caused by fragmented improvement activity
  • Alignment of improvements with strategic imperatives
  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Reduction of defects and waste
  • Improved effectiveness of key resources
  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Greater organisational learning and engagement

Personal impact

  • Identify, evaluate and improve workplace issues
  • Develop professional skills and critical thinking
  • Solve problems using structured methods
  • Make data-driven business decisions
  • Engage effectively with colleagues during team-based problem solving
  • Understand the language of business improvement

Course outline

Considering this for your organisation?

Talk to our corporate learning team about delivering this programme, or a bespoke variant of it, for your team.