2.7Operational Excellence

Management Approach

Group Operational Excellence functions are organized to support operational and assurance functions, with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective operation over the full lifecycle, through standardization and digitalization of processes in all areas of the Company’s business, as part of its ambition to ‘Target Excellence‘.

This goal is pursued in one hand via the Fast4Ward® program (see section 2.2) and in the other hand via the maintenance of the Company’s Global Enterprise Management System (GEMS) (see section 3.10.1), our Group Technical Standards (GTS) (see section 3.10.2) and Process Safety Management framework. Part of this framework is the continuous improvement cycle, achieved through lessons learned, as well as the adoption of best practices, including the application of the International Sustainability Rating System (ISRS) (see section 2.7.2).

For more information on Operational Governance, please refer to section 3.10.

2019 performance

The Company supported the journey to Target Excellence that is the guiding force to become “the best in everything we do” across our three-pillar strategy of ‘Optimize, Transform, Innovate’. Efforts were made to streamline GEMS, learn from events and to progress other continuous improvement initiatives.

Key achievements

  • Learning from events at Management level through investigation and follow-up of significant incidents.
  • Adoption of a number of lessons learned initiatives with the purpose of analyzing, developing and implementing robust solutions to improve our operations.
  • Deployment of our corporate Hazards and Effects Management Process, based on industry best practice for Advanced Barrier Management, as highlighted in section 2.7.1.
  • Continued deployment of Process Safety Management and Investigation/Root Cause Analysis training programs.
  • Ongoing integration of Operations Management System documentation into GEMS.

future

The following objectives have been set for 2020:

  • Continue to optimize GEMS, including restructuring and simplification where required.
  • Process Safety Management strategy and targets as highlighted in section 2.7.1.
  • Continuation of the deployment of ISRS and Process Safety Management frameworks, including the development or improvement of associated tools, where required, and further strengthening hazard management processes.
  • Maintain efforts on continuous improvement, including incident investigation and follow-up, and lessons learned initiatives.