English Edition (10 MB pdf) - Saudi Aramco

eWay’s Communities of Practice (CoPs) facilitate broad dissemination andsharing of Best Practices among Saudi Aramco employees. Project teammembers from all parts of the Kingdom can seamlessly converge virtuallywithout ever leaving their desks.interpretations). Mentoring and learning are natural byproducts.Second, eWay is as much a laboratory as it is arepository. After all, knowledge is not static but dynamic,thanks to the human element that explores, debates, interprets,harnesses, shares and inspires intelligence.Vail initiated the information-portal project in late 2000,and had the first prototype up and running by mid-2001. In2002, he recruited website technologies guru Paul Murrayas team leader and designer charged with taking the platformto new levels of collaboration and simplicity. In 2003,the website, http://eway.aramco.com.sa, was launched.Today the team consists of Murray; technical support staffmembers Ibrar Ali, Ramesh Babu and Shahul H. Akbar;and knowledge facilitator Mustafa Mustafa. (As the programevolves and its success grows, more facilitators willcome on board for each specific, strategic area.) Threeyears later, Vail says eWay is continuing to evolve.Murray explains that with most corporate knowledgeportals, the focus is more on technology than the peopleWe’ve intentionally made everything simple and user-friendly,so it’s more functional. We eliminated passwords andintegrated the system with e-mail, since that’s one of thetop communication tools in Saudi Aramco.using it, or the knowledge they’ll be sharing. “With eWay,IT is an enabler. We integrated the system with email, sincethat’s one of the top communication tools in Saudi Aramco.We’re always working to make it easier, because when technologyis usable, people get on board with it.”Two realities“We live and operate in two realities — the physical and thevirtual,” Vail states. “eWay lets us manipulate the virtualdimension and create efficiencies. We’ve collapsed time andgeography, so that they’re no longer hurdles to productivity.Widely scattered teams can work as if they are in the samerooms, yet individual members never leave their desks.”Murray, eWay’s team leader and lead designer, illustratesjust how handily eWay banishes spatial barriers. “The E&Porganization is spread all over Saudi Arabia, and in somecases, the globe,” he says, “and they’re sharing informationbetween the Shaybah and Haradh oil fields, and both aredoing Smart Wells completions, but are they sharing theirbest practices? Or is Drillingsharing its best practices withReservoir Management?“With eWay, distance is nolonger an issue. Communicationopens up. Organizational barriers4 Saudi Aramco Dimensions