Smart Materials is an integrated material, supply chain, and subcontract management solution that caters to the entire project lifecycle. It provides a common collaboration platform and project workbench for all partners in any engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) project supply chain.
Smart Materials helps to lower project costs, compress schedules, improve risk management, and prepare companies to act globally to maintain advantage in a highly complex, international, and competitive market.
From initial cost estimation through the supply chain to on-site management, Smart Materials handles materials standardization, bills of materials (BOM) and requisitions, procurement functions, fabrication tracking, and site functions, such as warehousing and disposition.
In the following graphic, you can see a high level representation of the key tasks in Smart Materials.
The engineering division creates the BOM (this is the list of everything needed to deliver the project), and hands over a requisition (summarized BOM - this is the list of what needs to be bought).
Once the procurement division receives the requisition, they begin the process of sourcing and scheduling. They create purchase orders and ensure that suppliers are lined up to create goods or provide labor on time for each stage in the process.
The expediting division manages the logistics by following up on orders to ensure that materials are manufactured, inspected and ready for shipment on time. From then on, the traffic coordinator takes over. The traffic coordinator oversees the packing and shipment process. The traffic coordinator interacts with the suppliers and freight forwarders to ensure that the required items arrive on time at the site. Once all of the materials are on site, the procurement division hands over the project to the construction team.
The construction team receives, issues and tracks the materials, maintains the inventory over the lifecycle of the project, manages work packages, and responds to design changes.
Efficient, on-time delivery of the project depends on seamless integration across this value chain.