Middle East

In addition to our International Board of Directors, MESA has a Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) Board that guides activities in those regions.  The EMEA Board consists of the following officers:

Mike James, ATS International - Chairman
Uwe Kueppers, Rockwell Automation - Vice Chair
Michael Schwarz - Treasurer

View the full list of MESA EMEA Board Members.

MESA Working Groups in the Middle East

MESA has established a Middle East Working Group. Various manufacturers, mainly active in the oil and gas industry, have expressed their interest in participating in MESA Working Groups. Despite the preconceived notion that MES has no or little added value to continuous processing, actual examples are proving otherwise. These kinds of experiences will be exchanged in the MESA International Working Group meetings.

MESA's working group in the Middle East is very successful. An increasing number of people are participating in the meetings, which are sponsored by MES solution providers. Four technical teams are formed in order to determine and exchange best practices and guidelines for applying MES.

Past Meetings:

Photos from past meetings can be viewed on MESA's Photo Share Site.

30th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its fifth 2011 monthly technical exchange meeting on May 31st, 2011. The meeting was sponsored by Emerson. More than 30 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Emerson presented a paper on "Asset Optimization to achieve Operational Excellence".

Presenter:
Abdullah A. Al-Ghamde who is services sales manager for Asset Optimization in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Abstract:
Operational Excellence is one of the business objectives to be a world-class organization. Operational excellence can be achieved by establishing a predictive maintenance environment that makes the best use of resources and allows you to operate with confidence. Asset Optimization is a proven process to determine asset priority and provide actionable information on how to maximize work processes around high-priority assets. A consultative approach to Asset Optimization was presented to help your organization reach Operational Excellence so that you can extract full value from predictive technologies, and deliver bottom-line results." View pictures from the event here.

29th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its fourth 2011 monthly technical exchange meeting on April 26th, 2011. The meeting was sponsored by Honeywell. More than 30 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Honeywell presented a paper on "Towards more consistent work practices by operations & maintenance.".

Presenter:
Phil Millette is currently Program Director and business development leader for supply chain solutions and Manufacturing Execution Solutions for Middle East. In this role, Phil provides leadership in pursuing opportunities to help process industry customers in all aspects of their operational management and supply chains - covering the hydrocarbon supply chain from oil & gas production, processing, transport to oil refining, petrochemicals and LNG. Now with Honeywell for 9 years, Phil Millette has previously held several roles: as Business Leader for Industrial Security for EMEA, as Saudi Aramco sales lead, as Oil & Gas Industry Consultant, for EMEA, for 4 years. He has 31 years experience in the industry. He gained a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. He gained his professional experience through progressive positions in the oil & gas industry, throughout Canada, the US, EMEA and Japan - both upstream and downstream -, in project and consulting leadership in optimisation, advanced control, business integration and supply chain in various organizations, including Esso Canada, Setpoint/ Aspen, as a contractor for IBM. He is a member of ISA. He is a Professional Engineer registered in the province of Ontario, Canada.

Abstract:
Operations and Maintenance share a common work space both physically and virtually in a process plant. Honeywell discuss issues of note towards improving collaboration in business process areas that plant organizations / end users frequently have difficulty in describing, and that are also often left to white-space by solution architects. View pictures from the event here.

28th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its third 2011 monthly technical exchange meeting on March 29th, 2011. The meeting was sponsored by SAS. More than 30 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. SAS presented a paper on "Optimize Process Quality and Costs with SAS".

Presenter:
Horia Orenstein
Director Advisory & Business Development
Global Oil & Gas Business Unit - SAS Institute
17 years experience in Oil & Gas.
Leadership responsibility in SAS' Oil and Gas Global Business Unit including the development, standardization and implementation of innovative business concepts and solutions, in close collaboration with international customers and industry stakeholders in the areas of Integrated Operations, Downstream Value Chain Optimization, Facility Integrity, Integrated Asset Management, Asset Portfolio Management, Production Management and Optimization; definition of SAS' Offering in Oil and Gas and compliance with market needs; compliance of installed solutions with the SAS' Offering principles; presentation of papers to international events. MSc Polytechnical Institute Bucharest, Romania.

Abstract:
Operations and Maintenance share a common work space both physically and virtually in a process plant. Honeywell discuss issues of note towards improving collaboration in business process areas that plant organizations / end users frequently have difficulty in describing, and that are also often left to white-space by solution architects. View pictures from the event here.

27th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its second 2011 monthly technical exchange meeting on Feburary 15th, 2011. The meeting was sponsored by Invensys. More than 30 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Invensys presented a paper on "On-line Performance Monitoring Solutions.".

Presenter:
Dr. Joe Kovach is currently Director for Online Modeling and Optimization with Invensys Operations Management in Europe. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, a Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a Ph. D. Degree from the same university with a dissertation on "Heterogeneous Azeotropic Distillation: Multiple Steady-States and Dynamics". He is specialized in Process simulation and modeling, numerical methods as applied to modeling problems in chemical engineering and software development & project management. Dr. Kovach has a wide experience, ranging from implementation of Optimization projects, to intimate engagement in the development of Invensys's ROMeo Suite of on-line modeling tools. Before joining Invensys - SimSci in 1993 he worked for Shell Oil Company and Chevron Research Company. Dr. Kovach is the author of several publications around on-line modeling and optimization.

Abstract:
Process models are known to be used for design and evaluation of processes, nearly always off-line, giving a kind of "after the facts" insight in the behavior of the plant. Putting models on-line, interacting with process historians, one can read a plant's performance in real-time allowing timely anticipation of problems, and hence saving potential loss of production by inefficient operation. Invensys's suite of On-line Modeling Products, ROMeo, helps operations achieve this. Presentation gave an insight in the features and capabilities of Invensys's on-line performance monitoring solutions. View pictures from the event here.

26th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its first 2011 monthly technical exchange meeting on January 31st, 2011. The meeting was sponsored by Siemens. More than 50 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Siemens presented a paper on "Closed Loop Collaboration Unifying Decision Making across Business and Operations".

Presenter:
Ahsan Yousufzai heads Siemens Oil & Gas Consulting Services in Middle East. With international career spanning more than 10 years with Siemens, Yousufzai started career as SAP consultant and later moved to Siemens International team for MES Solutions in the Oil & Gas Industry. Yousufzai has worked in leading roles in several MES projects including Toyota, Caspian Pipeline Consortium Russia, ExxonMobil, and Saudi Aramco.

Abstract:
The Process Industry has posed several challenges for Technology Providers in providing solutions to achieve the highest levels of Operational Excellence. With lower margins, high crude prices, high demand, and strict HSE regulations, there is a push to do more with less and leverage the know how of an aging work force across complex supply chains. From a solution, technology perspective, organizations face challenges sustaining corporate standards, integrating specialized applications, addressing diverse and rapidly evolving technologies, to deliver a unified business and operational intelligence decision support platform meeting corporate objectives and changing business needs. Our presentation will provide detailed insights on how Siemens answers these questions by providing an integrated approach for business and process data integration, visualization, reporting and analysis. View pictures from the event here.

17th Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting and Sponsor Recognition Event
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its final 2009 and 17th monthly technical exchange meeting on November 17th, 2009. The meeting was sponsored by Yokogawa - Middle East. More than 60 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Yokogawa presented a paper on "Real-time Production Organiser (RPO)". Combining many years of industry experience with proven technologies and leading edge platform products, Yokogawa delivers 'Operational Excellence' through their RPO concept. RPO is a suite of platform applications developed specifically to bridge the gap between production planning and process control providing a fully integrated business to process (B2P) production environment. In which, RPO integrates the vertical production execution workflow across all departments, enabling real-time decision making and allowing all tasks to be executed quickly, consistently and efficiently, enabling 'Agile Plant Operation'.

In addition, following the presentation, MESA ME WG recognized all 2009 events' sponsors. Total of seven sponsors during 2009 namely: Saudi Business Machine (SBM), Naizak, INOVx Solutions, Hyperion, Honeywell Middle East, Invensys Saudi Arabia, and Yokogawa Middle East. The sponsors highly appreciated the recognition and were encouraged to continue to participate annually in MESA Middle-East monthly events. View pictures from the event here.

16th MESA Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 16th monthly technical exchange meeting on October 27th, 2009. The meeting was sponsored by Invensys Process Systems - Saudi Arabia. More than 55 engineers from different solution providers and manufacturing users attended the meeting. Invensys presented a paper on "Beyond Enterprise Asset Management". In the industry, maintenance functions typically strive to maximize asset availability while operation functions strive for maximum asset utilization. Asset performance management (APM) is the holistic approach that has emerged to describe the practice of balancing availability and utilization around business performance. View pictures from the event here.

14th MESA Middle East Technical Exchange Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 14th technical exchange meeting on May 19th, 2009. The meeting was sponsored by Hyperion an automation solution provider for layer 3 (MOM layer). More than 50 engineers attended the meeting. Hyperion presented a paper on "Batch Tracking System - A better way to manage your manufacturing process and production orders". View pictures from the event here.

12th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 12th technical meeting on February 24, 2009. More than 60 engineers attended the meeting. The meeting was sponsored by Naizak. View pictures from event here.

11th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 11th technical meeting on January 20, 2009 at the Carlton Moaibed Hotel, Al Khobar. The meeting was sponsored by IBM. Pictures from the event are here.

10th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 10th quarterly technical meeting in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, November 8, 2008 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Al Khubar. More than 40 professionals attended the meeting, representing various manufacturers/producers and solution providers in the local MES industry for oil & gas. The meeting was sponsored GE Fanuc Automation Solution Saudi Arabia. As manufacturing increasingly becomes an essential part of a company's Extended Enterprise Supply Chain, the role of Manufacturing IT and the integration to plant and business systems is key to many companies success. GE explored the role that standards play in a company's Manufacturing IT solution and importantly the ability for that company to ensure that the People, Plant and Processes can take advantage of Manufacturing IT and adopt it as part of their everyday business. Pictures from the event are here.

8th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting
MESA's Middle East Working Group conducted its 8th quarterly technical meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday March 4th, 2008 at the Le Meridian Hotel, Al Khubar. More than 40 professionals attended the meeting, representing various manufacturers/producers and solution providers in the local MES industry for oil & gas. The meeting was sponsored by Invensys Middle East FZE.  Invensys presented their Collaborative Operations Management Systems (OMS).  OMS is an integrated software systems that helps management to operate one or more facilities in a consistent manner, obtain feedback on how the manufacturing facilities are operating, compare their operation to the desired operating modes and goals, and make the necessary adjustments to operate the facilities in a better and efficient manner.  It is the software automation of the Business Processes that fills in the gap and enable the smooth flow of information between the Process Automation Layer and the Business Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) layer. Pictures from the event are here.

7th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting in Saudi Arabia
Around 40 professionals from the Oil & Gas industry attended the 7th MESA Middle East meeting sponsored by Matrikon on November 26, 2007. Pictures from the event are here.

6th MESA Middle East Working Group Meeting in Saudi Arabia
Around 40 professionals from the Oil & Gas industry in Saudi Arabia attended the 6th MESA Middle East meeting sponsored by Yokogawa on June 12, 2007. Yokogawa shared with the audience the integration of Netweaver SAP Portal with their Control System, introducing a rich layer of MES applications for their users. The presentation was very informative and well attended. Pictures from the event are here.

MESA Working Group in Israel

For information on the MESA Israel Working Group, click here.