KCT takes steps to enhance planning protocol

Qatari contractor takes inventive leap in planning capabilities to meet the demands of the market

The number, size and scope of projects in Qatar is presenting new challenges to contractors in dealing with the volume and complexity of planning requirements, and KCT is making certain to streamline procedures and technology to bring all of its capabilities up to the mark. Mohammed Moutaz Khayyat, CEO of Khayyat Contracting & Trading (KCT) says: One of the first things we did was to recruit individual planning engineers for each of the KCT projects, allowing weekly updates of the time schedules in order to precisely measure any delay in each program. Samir Sakka, senior planning manager at KCT, notes: My role is to establish tools to control and monitor the projects, and the planning engineers under me play a crucial role in highlighting any changes in the pace of progress, or areas of concern on the projects. Further to this, the contractor has standardised the forms used to prepare its reports and begun to feed the inputs into a common KCT web reporting system that allows all of its directors and senior management of the company check up on any project at any time and from anywhere. The focus on conveying this information is all about time, as a day delay on a big project means a day of salaries for often thousands of employees. Sakka continues: I have never seen something like this at any contracting company in this region, and this is just one of our tools. Communication skills are very important in our field and this website is a means of communication - its a new way of communicating our report data. Finally, in the role of the planning department as the lead in technical tender submittals, tools are being developed to enhance process of communication, coordination and collection of the tender components from the different departments. Mohammed Raslan Khayyat, company founder summarises: We are ever developing new software and tools to facilitate our work, and my future vision for the planning department is to enhance these tools even further to manage all projects to an even greater degree of detail in terms of time, cost and the risk management.