OREANDA-NEWS. December 05, 2013. The Vendor Inspection Division of the Inspection Department recently conducted the “In-Kingdom Contractors Quality Awareness Workshop” in Dhahran for local contractors.

In a continuing effort to boost local contractors’ quality awareness, the half-day event was attended by 110 delegates representing 42 local contractors, as well as members of Saudi Aramco’s Project Management Team (SAPMT).

Husam Sendi, Vendor Inspection division head, welcomed attendees in his opening remarks, urging them to get the utmost benefit from such an event. Sendi emphasized the importance of quality for the success of projects, plant integrity and personnel safety.

“Quality is an investment to eliminate rework and to ensure safe and reliable operations for Saudi Aramco facilities,” he said. 

During the workshop, several presentations addressed project procurement activities, areas of improvement and key issues related to quality management in procurement. Also, several lessons gleaned from current and previous projects were shared and discussed with workshop participants.

The participants then engaged in an open discussion session led by Quality Monitoring Unit supervisor Nayef K. Al Utaibi. Participants exchanged quality related information, shared success stories and best practices, and addressed common and repeated quality issues and methods to overcome them in future.

Participants from SAPMT and in-Kingdom contractors provided positive feedback about the workshop. Jaco Seeger, SAPMT material specialist, said: “The interactive workshop was very relevant to the critical procurement and quality related aspects. The detailed procurement and quality processes presented by VID will assist in-Kingdom contractors to meet Saudi Aramco requirements.”

Attendees also strongly recommended that similar workshops be conducted in the future.