Black & Veatch Saudi engineering graduates commencing their careers at Al-Qassim Power Plant

In spite of depressed oil revenues, Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure investment is set to maintain the upward trajectory of the last two decades. According to MEED Projects, the Kingdom has the biggest pipeline, about $800 billion of planned projects, of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

In terms of critical human infrastructure — the power, water and telecommunications systems in which Black & Veatch specializes — MEED Projects forecasts the Kingdom needs to be able to generate an additional 20,239MW of power, while the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) cites the need for $24 billion investment in additional water capacity.

Transforming investments into infrastructure requires engineers. Currently the Kingdom is reliant upon expat expertise. This is because although local engineering talent exists, the numbers are low in comparison to demand; and the necessary experience can be lacking.

Developing domestic engineering resources is central to enabling long-term sustainable development. Fostering the Kingdom’s indigenous engineering capability has benefits beyond creating employment opportunities and reducing the reliance on imported expertise. Using Saudi engineers can also enhance project outcomes.

We usually talk about knowledge transfer in terms of expat engineers helping to develop the talents of their local counterparts. As a Saudi working for a US company operating across the globe, I see the benefits of bringing overseas expertise and experience to projects in the Kingdom. But this is a two-way street. Best practice will only work if it is tailored for the market to which it is being applied. So we need Saudi engineers to help ensure the solution being offered to an engineering challenge is both appropriate and sustainable in the long term, for the Kingdom’s needs.

Black & Veatch’s approach to developing Saudi Arabia’s latest generation of engineers is multifaceted. One group of 15 engineering graduates are commencing their careers with us at Al-Qassim Power Plant, a combined cycle conversion project for Saudi Electricity Company (SEC). Knowledge transfer is complex, our new professionals need to master technically difficult tasks, and different trainees respond to different teaching methods and learn at different rates.

As a result, their power-plant expertise is being developed with a mixture of on-the-job training at the project site, class-room work and off-site sessions. This gives our trainers the opportunity to understand the engineers’ learning preferences and plan the knowledge transfer strategies accordingly. Across all of the activities, we encourage the young engineers to take ownership of their training by proactively identifying their own development needs.

We seek to create a culture of knowledge sharing in which peers and trainers are helped to excel by offering each other mutual support. The duration of the program differs between students, but our target is that they will achieve the desired level of skills and knowledge in 12 months. In addition to training our own Saudi graduates, we are helping develop the skills of SEC’s teams. Black & Veatch hosted 21 SEC engineers — from the utility’s Power Plant 10, Power Plant 12 and Al-Qassim power stations — for an eight-week training program at our global headquarters, in Overland Park, Kansas, USA.

The program was run in two streams; mechanical and electrical, with trainees ranging from new hires to five years’ service with SEC. Our intention was to enable the group to efficiently operate and maintain SEC’s power generation assets.

As with the Al-Qassim training, we sought to create a broad-based program grounded in practice as well as theory. In addition to the classroom sessions, we took the SEC engineers to see three different types of power plant in operation.

To further broaden their understanding of the plants, we arranged factory visits so they could see for themselves how some of a power station’s vital components — such as transformers and motors — are built. As the program’s focus was operation and maintenance, we also took the engineers on a tour of a gas turbine repair facility.

Long-term, multidisciplinary development of Saudi engineering graduates makes up the third strand of our knowledge transfer initiative. Graduates on this program are based at our global headquarters for two or three years. The aim is to expose them to the many disciplines the company undertakes, and then allow them to focus upon their preferred field. Feedback suggests they value the way the program allows them to contribute to live projects and gain experience of clients in multiple markets and regions.

This program has been running for the last three years; typically we take on five or six interns per calendar year. The first tranche of participants is due to return to the Kingdom shortly, and put in practice at home the skills we have helped them develop in the US.

Mazen Alami