Leading companies like Sabic, Aramco and Ma’aden have already started reliability and sustainability checks and are becoming a role model for all other companies, says ABDULAZIZ ALMARDI AL-GHAMDI, CEO and president of REC

Saudi-based Reliability Expert Centre (REC), which has carved a niche for itself in the kingdom by providing state-of-the-art solutions related to reliability, energy and sustainability management through consultancy, software, training and development services, is aligning its vision to match Saudi Arabia’s 2030 vision.

'Saudi Arabia’s 2030 vision is the best plan that will help REC’s business to have more success because it will create the road map for all industries to align with it' says Abdulaziz Almardi Al-Ghamdi, CEO and president of REC.

'Reliability, Energy & Sustainability are the latest methodologies and techniques that are utilised by major industrial leaders and they have become more strategic and integral part of the businesses. The executives become more aware of adopting and implementing these services because they improve the overall performance, safety, quality, reliability and sustainability besides reducing operation and maintenance costs and increasing productivity and profitability. REC is proud to be the first Saudi company providing these type of services,' Al-Ghamdi points out

Leading companies like Sabic, Aramco and Ma’aden have already started reliability and sustainability checks and are becoming a role model for all other companies. However, REC believes that reliability and sustainability are not yet part of the business culture where it should be as most of the industrial verticals are not fully aware of these subjects since it is newly introduced in Saudi Arabia.

REC currently provides services to all sectors including oil and gas, petrochemicals, mining, metal, power and utilities industries. 'The expected changes in the oil and gas sectors will affect our business positively because we provide services that enhance business performance by reducing cost and increasing profitability. At the same time our services are not limited to one business line and have the ability to expand to other industrial verticals including pharmaceutical, nuclear, automotive, aerospace and defence. Recently we started receiving requests from airports and universities,' he says.

'We continue to provide our support to all our customers and will continue to spread the knowledge and enhance the culture. We are also focusing on the education sector to promote and enhance the reliability and sustainability products and services. We are offering universities and colleges our reliability software at minimum cost with the added benefit of free software licenses for students,' he says.

'We also successfully implemented a complete reliability solution for Ma’aden Phosphate Company which includes reliability software, trainings and consultation' and has completed several projects with leading industries of Saudi Arabia such as Sabic, Ma’aden, Farabi, Arabian Cement and 'we continue to provide service and support to all our customers'.

REC was established with the strategic vision of spreading a reliability and sustainability culture and knowledge across Saudi Arabia.

'Since we started REC in 2009, we have continued to improve and add new services. In the first year itself we were only offering Root Cause Analysis service. In the second year, we become the representative of a world leader in providing reliability engineering services 'ReliaSoft' and we started offering a complete range of reliability related services such as asset performance management, reliability-centred maintenance, risk-based Inspection, safety instrumented system, reliability studies, training, certifications and complete reliability software.

REC ... spreading its wings

This year, REC introduced energy and sustainability as a new business line because it complements the services related to reliability and gives the company the ability to meet its customers’ needs and requirements. Sustainability management solutions offer a complete range of energy and environmental reporting, carbon management and reporting and sustainability reporting and management.

In certification and development, the firm offers a complete development programme for certifying reliability engineers and professionals. The development programme is based on three steps -- learn the reliability concepts by attending the various trainings courses, apply the learned concepts on the field by doing a project that will benefit the organization and passing a final test and issuing a report and presentation, he says.

'We offered our services and solutions though experts -- Saudi Consultants along with industrial international partners ReliaSoft Corporation for Reliability and ThinkStep for energy and sustainability. We have been providing our services to major companies in Saudi Arabia such as Sabic, Ma’aden, Farabi and Arabian Cement.'

'We offer a complete reliability and asset performance management solution, energy and sustainability management solution, lubrication management and inspection engineering.

'Also, we extend our services to the education sector by providing the reliability software to universities such as the Salman Bin Abdulaziz University. We also helped industries and civil defence in conducting major incident investigation.

'In addition to the successes of the centre we have created a platform for the Saudi retired expert professionals to extend and share their outstanding knowledge with others. We work actively in promoting the reliability and sustainability culture through conducting training workshops and participating conferences,' he says.

The company has trained more than 5,000 employees since its establishment. It is also focused on Saudisation initiatives where it exceeded all requirements.

Reliability Expert strategy is based on continuous improvement. 'We have very clear plan and roadmap and we continue to evaluate and improve according to progress and business needs. Part of our strategy is to utilise our partners’ knowledge, skills and experience to develop expertise locally. This helps in serving our customers’ faster and economically,' he says.

Reliability expert training services are performed by a team of permanent staff, subject-matter experts and partners. 'We have different departments training, projects, marketing and sales and administration. Our directly-hired employees around 12, subject-matter experts are around 25 and our partners’ consultant are more than 500,' he adds.

'We believe the future is very bright and promising,' he says.

Besides, REC is in the process of establishing two new departments one for inspection engineering and another for lubrication management.

The inspection engineering department is being led by Ali Al-Beed who has gained significant experience working with Sabic for more than 30 years. It will also be supported by international business partners such as Aantea and will provide service related to inspection management software, corrosion, material and failure analysis, he says.

REC is also in the process of signing an agreement with Noria Corporation for providing lubrication management services.