We spoke to the people in charge of the new Quality Department, who have decades of experience working at Tecpetrol and are now pursuing a new objective: continuous improvement in operations management.

Our latest piece of good news is that we have a new Quality Department, only beaten by the even better news that its members are well-established referents in Tecpetrol, who between them have notched up several years of experience in the areas of Materials, Maintenance, Drilling & Workover and Operations. They describe themselves as “people whose added value is a deep knowledge of operations, which makes it much easier to get through to everybody. Our job is to adapt to the context and the needs of each business unit.”

The new Quality Department is headed up by Raúl Tuvio, Senior Director of Quality, who is joined by Javier Leiva, Senior Manager of Quality Operations, Walter Seri, Senior Manager of Quality Maintenance, Juan Tovar, Senior Manager of Drill & Completion Quality, Paolo Alliata di Montereale, Senior Manager of Quality Materials, and Germán Lizarazu, Senior Regional Manager for Quality in the Neuquén Basin. Furthermore, the team includes a number of seasoned Quality leaders from other national and international areas, who explain to Tecpetrol Hoy how it all started. “The idea for a Quality Department came about when we identified the need for greater support for operations management due to the sharp growth we’ve in recent years, the result of increased activity in the Unconventional market as well as throughout our other projects. We began to develop it during the second semester of 2021 and it was consolidated in January 2022.”

The Quality Department handles all the operational activities falling under the aegis of the E&P Presidency. Its principal tool is the Quality Management System (QMS), designed not only to improve the way procedures are planned and performed but also to correct deviations in processes, facilitate decision-making, optimize resources by managing quality-related costs, and encourage continuous improvement, training and innovation.

The design of the department and the scope of its activity were established following an extensive compilation of what had been done in Tecpetrol in this area up to that point. “We analyzed our strengths and weaknesses and we carried out a benchmarking exercise against other companies in the industry and the Techint Group to see where we stood. This information enabled us to carry out a diagnosis and establish our point of departure, specify needs, and identify resources,” explains the team. "We took the Quality Policy as our basic framework, as its main axis is our people, who are the principal resource for the implementation, development, and maintenance of the system."

“We are working in a coordinated fashion with the other areas in the E&P Presidency. For example, we are integrating the SAS/Quality Software (Events and Non-Conformities Module).”

“Tecpetrol has always prioritized quality as it is part of the Techint Group, but now the goal is for us to build our own system. Shouldering this responsibility is a challenge that puts us on another level. We trust the team and the degree of synergy achieved between our more experienced and our more youthful employees to accomplish the mission set out by Management.”

“Everything we have experienced so far at Tecpetrol provides us with information to enable us to take the next step and develop strategies to support our operations. We’re extremely motivated, to the point that some members of the team are doing master's degrees and studying for specializations in this sphere. Working here in this Department is an opportunity for our organization to be better every day.”

Daniel Sauthier, Vice President Operations, concludes that, “In addition to everything developed so far, this Department will help to further integrate our operational areas by standardizing methods, aligning objectives and improving team interaction across the board. Having an area like this has always been a dream. Now we have it, and every day our path becomes clearer.”