Miri – 12 April 2021 – Some 30 engineering and science students and academic staff of Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) recently attended a virtual training workshop on ‘Multidisciplinary Collaboration, Agile Project Management and Risk Register’ jointly hosted Curtin Malaysia’s Faculty of Engineering and Science and Kuala Lumpur-based energy consultants ALECA Sdn Bhd (ALECA).
ALECA Sdn Bhd is a Malaysian-registered company based in Kuala Lumpur with energy sector professionals committed to expanding their agile software ALECA, which is a cloud-based practical toolkit that enable teams of multidisciplinary professionals to collaborate and find innovative ways to deliver sustainable energy projects. Through the ALECA system, the ALECA Global Expert Network is also available to provide remote consulting services cost effectively.
The one-day workshop allowed the students and academics to get acquainted with ALECA, which was created by a team of industry experts, programmers and project managers to help organisations across the energy industry transition to more agile and collaborative ways of working. They also learned how ALECA helps organisations assess energy investment risks and calculate their carbon footprint.
The workshop was an outcome of a Letter of Agreement (LoA) signed between ALECA Sdn Bhd and Curtin Malaysia in October 2020 whereby ALECA Sdn Bhd is committed to provide cloud-based licenses of their system to multi-disciplinary groups of students at Curtin Malaysia to learn about delivering agile collaborative projects. In addition, experts from ALECA Sdn Bhd are to conduct training workshops using case study datasets supplied by the company.
Facilitating this workshop were Managing Director Serge Jean and Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Advocate Yasmin Iman of ALECA Sdn Bhd.
The workshop started with a session on carbon footprints, followed by an introduction to the ALECA applications for assessing technical and commercial data from various disciplines such as geology, reservoir engineering, drilling, project completion, environmental initiatives, economics and risk register.
According to the trainers, there is typically very little collaboration and communication between teams of different disciplines in the energy industry as they tend to work in isolation and use tailored software. This can cause delays in decision making and difficulties in recycling of complex workflows, resulting in high-cost overruns.
ALECA introduces agile workflows which requires disciplines to work concurrently and iteratively during projects and helps teams continuously evaluate requirements, review plans and assess early results so that they have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly. The ALECA agile way of working delivers value to their customers faster and more efficiently.
“Cloud-based collaborative platforms like ALECA are essential in the new-normal working environment and I am glad our students and staff have the opportunity to keep pace with such concepts and technology in industry,” said Prof Tuong-Thuy Vu, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Science. He added that they are also very relevant to the energy-related subjects taught at the Faculty, as well as the energy-related research it conducts.
Senior lecturer of chemical engineering Dr. Bridgid Chin Lai Fui, who is chair of the Faculty’s student-alumni relations committee and an organiser of the workshop, remarked that it is fortunate with the digital technology of today to be able to effectively conduct such a workshop despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, being taught by industry experts and getting access to cloud-based tools, as well as the use of industrial case studies, gave the students and academics very relevant and valuable industry exposure.
Petroleum engineering lecturer and programme coordinator Dr. Ziad Bennour said it is good how ALECA amalgamates the technical and commercial aspects of the energy industry utilising a single cloud-based software.
“Multidisciplinary teams can now conveniently collaborate by communicating risks and uncertainties, and make faster and better decisions. Such systems also more cost-effective, combining multiple software applications used by different disciplines into a single comprehensive software that can be used across the industry,” said Dr. Ziad.
Meanwhile, mechanical engineering lecturer Abdul Hamid Bin Abdullah said he gained considerable new knowledge about greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, including how to calculate his personal carbon footprint by using ALECA’s versatile carbon footprint calculator.
For more information on ALECA, visit www.alecasolutions.com or look for @ALECAsdnbhd on social media.
For more information on Curtin Malaysia, visit curtin.edu.my, or look for Curtin Malaysia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.
Online Education Fair 线上教育展
Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia)
科廷大学马来西亚分校
https://edufair.fsi.com.my/curtin
