14

Reading the article of Arthur P. Clark in the PMI ViewPoint (December 2003, Vol. 8 - Issue No. 3) magazine on“Saudi Aramco’s Haradh Gas Plant mega-project”—a “$2Billion project [that] was completed” six months ahead ofits 37-month project schedule with “11,500 men” during theproject’s peak with “26 different nationalities”, this individualcan only admire the impressive success of the teamparticularly on the early completion of the project.

This writer shares, too, his 7-year experience (1995-2002) in a 10-year, US$ 4.2 Billion TEP6/GSM “mega-telecom” project that installed 1.5 million telephone switchlines in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia1. The project entailedmassive recruitment activities of 5,000 direct-hire personneland deployment of some “30,000” subcontracted manpowerKingdom-wide with 41 nationalities. A 17,000-kilometer fiberoptic network and 20,000-kilometer copper cable includingassociated conduit, manholes and equipment were installedfor this project—including the longest fiber optic ring in theworld which covers 3,363 kilometers2. The TEP6/GSM projectis the largest telecom project undertaken so far in the MiddleEast. The customer was initially the Ministry of Post,Telegraph and Telephone (MoPTT) and then a new companynamed Saudi Telecom Company (STC).

The TEP6/GSM project was awarded to then AT&TInternational – Saudi Arabia in late 1994. (In a September1995 “trivestiture”, AT&T split into three separatecompanies—one of them was Lucent TechnologiesInternational Inc. (Saudi Arabia Branch) that would take overthe project.)3 Intensive project planning and massiverecruitment activities began in early 1995.

This article depicts the power of process and systemapproaches to project management and the role of a Qualityfunction in an enormous project environment.

In a June 1999 Executive Management Team meetingof Lucent Saudi Arabia, the senior officers addressed one ofthe major issues affecting the operations of the GSMcomponent of the project—the “Master Clock” that governsthe synchronization of various frequencies of the wirelesscommunication system installed in the entire Kingdom4. OnJune 26, 1999, the Vice President of Implementation tappedthe resource of the local Quality department to facilitate aprocess development and improvement team aimed at findingsolutions to the problem associated with the “Master Clock”.This writer was assigned as a management sponsorrepresenting the Quality Council to the Network Planning &

Design (NP&D) department to facilitate the department’ssenior management and the subsequent teams to be formed.

In the initial assessment of the current situation, someroot causes were found, like: lack of reliable or centralizedsource of data; the inputs to the Synchronization Databasecame from various departments; each department waskeeping its own database; required data were difficult toobtain; data inputted into the database were redundant,unreliable and needed to be revalidated several times (seeFigure 1).

Figure 1. Network of Activities from Network Planning toOperation & Maintenance (O&M).

After establishing rapport with the senior managementof NP&D department, this author developed a quality plan toorient and train the process manager/team leader and theteam members on the fundamentals of process qualitymanagement and improvement (PQMI).

The process model of ISO 9000 standard (Figure 2)was impressed in the minds of the team leader and teammembers. The Project Management Book of Knowledge(PMBOK 2000) of the Project Management Institute (PMI)defines process as “a series of actions bringing about aresult.”5 ISO 9001:2000’s definition of process is: “a set ofinterrelated or interacting activities which transform inputsinto outputs.” In its simplest term, any process is expectedto produce something called an “output.” A businessorganization can also be viewed as a huge process boxdriven by “inputs”, with certain internal resources, andproduces definite outputs—products and/or services.

The Power of Process and SystemApproaches to Project Management

ByEfren Alvarez Galapon

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Figure 2. Process Nomenclature.

The system model of Dr. W.E. Deming was also taughtto the team leader and members (see Figure 3). Demingdefines system as “a series of functions or activities (sub-processes, stages—[or] components) within an organizationthat work together for the aim of the organization”6. Theessence of Deming’s system is that it calls forinterdependence among it various components.

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Another powerful concept taught to the NP&D processimprovement teams is the Customer/Supplier model ofLucent Saudi Arabia (Figure 4). The Customer/Suppliermodel shows a 3-entity chain. At the end of the chain is the“Customer” waiting for an “output” to be supplied by aprocessor or a “process”. A process, however, requires an“input” in order to produce what the Customer requires orneeds. An “input” is provided by a “Supplier”. If, for any reason,the Customer is not satisfied of what it received, itcommunicates itself in the form of feedback; and the samehappens to the “Process” with the “Supplier”.

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In a span of one-and-half months, the originalSynchronization process development team recommendedthe formation of eight more teams (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Actions taken pertaining to problemsassociated with the “Master Clock” and an overview of theformation of the Integrated Team.

By now, all the team members of the nine businessprocesses focused their collective sight on one commonobjective: to structure an integrated synchronization process.In an August 31, 1999 meeting, the SynchronizationIntegrated Process flowchart (Figure 6) was presented toan audience that included Vice Presidents, Directors,functional managers and subject matter experts. Eachcomponent of this Integrated Process is an independentprocess that was fully documented indicating the functionaldepartments involved. Each of these processes wasindependent. However, when these processes were linkedtogether within a wider process boundary, they becameinterdependent with each other—for example, the output ofone process is the input to the other. The flowchart becamea valuable source of reference showing the interactions andinterdependencies of various functional organizations ofLucent SA.

Figure 6. Synchronization Integrated ProcessFlowchart.

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16

From September 1999 onwards, significant activitieswere undertaken by the NP&D department:

♦Implementation of Synchronization Plan Preparationand Approval Process;

♦Development and implementation of Switch (SW)database;

♦Development and implementation of Synchronizationdatabase (see Figure 7);

♦Development of the components of theSynchronization Integrated Process; and

♦Development and implementation of an As-BuiltProcess.

Figure 7. Structure of the improved Synchronizationdatabase (ORACLE is a trademark of Oracle Corporation).

With these accomplishments of the synchronizationintegrated team, the problems associated with the “MasterClock” were worked out effectively one after the other in duetime.

There was, however, one obstacle to these teams: thefragmented departments that made communication difficult.Lack of effective communication among these eightfunctional organizations was one of the root causes ofdelayed project delivery.

In January 2000, a major reorganization prevailed. Allengineering functions (except OSP Engineering) weregrouped into one department, named: Network EngineeringGroup (NEG). The Director of NP&D department in June1999 became the head of the new Group. On the other hand,Material Management, ISP and GSM Implementationdepartments were likewise grouped under one Director. Thiswas a demonstration of a high-level Business ProcessReengineering (BPR) in a huge “projectized” organizationinitiated by decisive senior officers of Lucent SA.

Of course, this success story did not end in the January2000 reorganization. On July 4, 2001, Lucent Saudi Arabiabecame the “first telecom company in the Middle East”7 tobe certified with ISO 9001:2000 standard. TheSynchronization Integrated Process structure was used alongwith two of the eight quality management principles of the

ISO 9004:2000 standard—process approach and systemapproach to management—as guides in the development ofthe Quality Management System. These approaches werelargely responsible for the breaking of the communicationbarriers between functional groups and for the elimination ofoverlapping responsibilities.

On the Project Management point of view, many of the“thirty-nine project management processes” of the PMBOK2000 edition were applied:♦Project Integration Management—Project Plan

Development (4.1) and Project Plan Execution (4.2).♦Project Scope Management—Initiation (5.1).♦Project Time Management—Activity Definition (6.1).♦Project Cost Management—Resource Planning (7.1) Cost

Estimating (7.2) and Cost Budgeting (7.3).♦Project Quality Management—Quality Planning (8.1),

Quality Assurance (8.2) and Quality Control (8.3).♦Project Human Resource Management—Organizational

Planning (9.1), Staff Acquisition (9.2) and TeamDevelopment (9.3).

♦Project Communications Management—CommunicationsPlanning (10.1), Information Distribution (10.2),Performance Reporting (10.3) and Administrative Closure(10.4).

♦Risk Management—Risk Management Planning (11.1).♦Project Procurement Management—Procurement

Planning (12.1), Source Selection (12.4), ContractAdministration (12.5) and Contract Closeout (12.6).

REFERENCES:

1. Efren Alvarez Galapon and James S. Norton. “TQM Works forLucent ‘QITs’ in Saudi Arabia on TEP6.” 55th Annual QualityCongress Proceedings, Charlotte, NC, Vol. 55, No. 0, May 2002,pp. 660-673.

2. Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Azzam. “Lucent presents paper on qualitymanagement at US conference.” Riyadh Daily, July 22, 2001, p.8.

3. Efren Alvarez Galapon and Khalaf Al Shamari. “Transforming anorganization through business process reengineering.”Proceedings of the 2nd Gulf International Quality Conference,Exhibition & Workshops ‘Globalization: Attain and sustainexcellence.’” Manama, Bahrain, April 15-17, 2002, pp. 311-334.

4. Efren Alvarez Galapon and Tariq Khawaja. “A Systemic Approach:A Saudi Arabian Experience.” 56th Annual Quality CongressProceedings, Denver, CO, Vol. 56, No. 0, May 2002, pp. 511-524.

5. PMI. “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge.”2000, p.29.

6. William J. Latzko and David M. Saunders. “Four Days with Dr.Deming A strategy for Modern Methods of Management.” 1995,p.35.

7. Jawdah. Lucent SA advertisement. October 2001, p.7.

Efren Alvarez Galapon is currently employed as internal QualityConsultant and is the Head of the Quality Management & Improvement(QMI) Division of AMSYCO in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Efrenspecializes in organizational, management system and processanalysis, design and development compliant with ISO 9001:2000standard as well as in change management. Efren is a former memberof Project Management Institute (PMI) International Chapter,American Society for Quality (ASQ), Saudi Arabian Quality Council(SAQC) and American Management Association (AMA).efren_galapon@yahoo.com.

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