Page 62 - Impiantistica Industriale - Novembre-Dicembre 2016

Effective integration between procurement and construction teams is critical in ensuring materials arrive in the right
place at the right time

tation, vendor data & documents requirements, • creating a common system and processes for
and requisition-based data. Buyers can also cho- all projects will improve efficiency as reporting
ose items during the bid evaluation process and/ will be consistent across all projects;
or optimise the selection of suppliers for requisition • planning is improved and the amount of “pa-
line items to minimise project costs, while matching nic” buying is decreased by having access to
project scheduling constraints. better quality information that is made availa-
ble earlier;
Enhanced site management • flexible, data centric and project specific ap-
proach to supply chains replaces the traditio-
Site management is a key component of effecti- nal document centric and paper based conso-
ve materials management providing stakeholders lidated approach, which is no longer matching
with several benefits, including total materials vi- for today’s requirements from joint ventures /
sibility from shipments through issue of materials partnering projects where enhanced sharing
to the final installation. This ensures controlling of data and key project information, as well as
critical tasks at site, such as balancing onsite improved workprocess execution is needed.
personnel and materials availability.
In addition, digitally automated procedures for ma- Often, inadequate audit performance can impact
terials receiving allow materials to be assigned to project schedules as the project teams need to
site inventories in the shortest possible time, there- respond to findings and do any required modifica-
fore preventing errors in the inventory information. tions. However, having easier access to key audit
The multiple warehouse status capabilities, and an data makes it easier to track performance and
ability to track materials movement between the recovering from last minute incoming issues and
warehouses with audit trails, helps to avoid wrong challenges faster.
materials installation and inefficient materials con-
trol.
Minimised shortages
How to improve procurement and surpluses
efficiency? Tight integration of engineering and procurement
also facilitates better tracking and forecasting, elim-
A complete technological solution, such as Inter- inating surpluses and shortages of materials. It can
graph SmartPlant Materials can support enhancing also help creating a construction-driven schedule
efficiency by providing a common collaboration for early planning of engineering and procurement
platform and project workbench for all partners in material activities.
any EPC project supply chain. SmartPlant Mate- One of the key features of a modern materials man-
rials enables improvement in procurement efficien- agement solution is the ability to integrate all EPC
cies through: materials data in one system, providing a central-
• single data input and integration with ised access to all relevant materials stakeholders.
SmartPlant Enterprise means that downstre- A centralised portal, such as Intergraph SmartPlant
am processes/groups are not required to re- Materials Portal, enables users to manage supplier
input data for their purposes, and copy and qualifications on a global level, allowing vendors to
paste through Microsoft Office files is no lon- virtually ‘knock on any door’ to qualify as a sup-
ger required; plier. In addition, when choosing a supplier, not
• rule-driven processes allow less time to be only pricing information or terms and conditions
spent on organising data, freeing more re- can be exchanged, but suppliers can also provide
sources for strategising and negotiating. additional information such as Q & A documents
I believe this to be 1 bullet point: and technical information through the portal. Fur-

60 Impiantistica Italiana - Novembre-Dicembre 2016