Companies that decide to invest in an EPCM (engineering procurement construction management) system do so for various reasons, like better risk management for the project owners/clients, enhanced project turnaround speed and time flexibility (where some tasks or actions can be done in parallel instead of sequentially), and of course the most basic features of engineering procurement construction software, namely, online access to project data and to project stakeholders. Recently we’re seeing another trend develop as integrated engineering procurement construction management software becomes the norm rather than the exception and that is a tangible moving away from traditional top-down EPC project management contracts, which directly impacts the software those companies choose to invest in for the management and monitoring of their capital projects.

It goes without saying that the role a modern EPCM system plays in a project is directly linked to its features, but on investigation it becomes clear that the benefits of an engineering procurement construction management software are only as effective as its implementation; in other words, buying the EPCM system is just the first step and implementing it correctly is the second and more important one. What do I mean by this? Isn’t software software, end of the day? No. Project management software is complex and configuring it to exactly meet your organisation’s processes and culture is critical. Only then will the EPCM software yield truly beneficial results to the organisation as a whole.

Now let’s quickly define what an EPCM software actually is.

First what is EPCM? Simply put, EPCM is a kind of contract that governs modern-day engineering and construction projects. It is an acronym for the three main phases of the project, namely, the management of Engineering (design/drawings), Procurement (of materials/components/equipment) and Construction (the actual building at the construction site) ie engineering procurement construction management.

The difference between EPCM and EPC is mostly semantics, in that EPC is a type of industry or project and stands for engineering procurement and construction while EPCM is a service or contract delivered to/for that industry/project. When you add the word ‘system’ or ‘software’ you’re talking about a kind of enterprise software solution that helps project organisation deliver their EPCM contracts more effectively.

A good engineering procurement construction management software will have functions that directly impact at least two things; project speed and project costs, and now we can add a third – project financing. That is because nowadays having a good digital EPCM system undergirding your operations can be the competitive advantage you’re looking for in crowded markets; in fact we’re entering an era where the selection of an EPCM software can have a significant impact on project financing strategies as well its profit margins and should therefore be considered a business priority rather than an operational improvement. Some companies even list the purchase of EPCM software under procurement as part of the project budget.

For example, consider these situations; there are several bidders for a desirable EPC contract but it turns out this particular project comes with certain obvious risks that make the contract unattractive to many bidders, given the well-known lack of appetite of EPC contractors for accepting risk. Or take another situation: there’s a project where some work packages have been undertaken as standalone packages and this has been done in an attempt to mitigate the risk of scope creep and the EPC contractor cannot (or is unwilling to) to take on the responsibility for the fallout of such scope creep. In such cases, rather than missing out on potentially golden opportunities, the company could choose to invest in a top-of-the-line EPCM software to offset the risk to a manageable degree. They could table it as a needful business spend or even include it in the contract itself.

That is why EPC organisations should investigate and fully understand the impact of an EPCM system on their business as a whole before they select such a system. Detailed evaluation is especially important today with so many brands and types of systems on the market, from off-the-shelf EDMS applications to enterprise-wide integrated engineering procurement construction management software.

Now let’s consider how an integrated engineering procurement construction management software can impact your project costs. For example, a company that has taken on multiple concurrent projects stands to gain a great deal from an EPCM system because such a system would significantly reduce project running costs during every phase of the project lifecycle, in fact during every task and every activity. If that system was correctly calibrated and configured to the company’s workflows and processes and the implementation team took into account the company’s specific manpower requirements and working culture and built all those factors into the EPCM platform during implementation, the company’s managers would have an intuitive and foolproof way to monitor individual or bundled work packages – all in real time and in the cloud.

To conclude, just as the decision to go in for EPCM contract structures vs the traditional EPC structures must be a well-considered one in increasingly competitive market climates, the decision to purchase an EPCM software must also be carefully considered in increasingly digitized business cultures.