在企业技术方面，工程和建筑业是保守的。鉴于利润率紧张和收入波动，许多执行团队很难致力于企业资源计划（ERP）软件。

Senior executives at construction firms orengineer, procure, construct (EPC) contractorsmay realize the industry is changing, and they need to get better control over their business. They know systemic change is coming to the industry and they have to be ready. But they need to see a well-defined upside to move forward. At IFS, we have a rigorousbusiness value engineering (BVE) processthat we work through with our customers. And this process lays out clear and reliable benefits that engineering and construction companies should be able to realize from implementing true 21st Century construction ERP. Of the various ways engineering and contracting firms achieve return on investment (ROI) from ERP, the lion’s share of the upside originates from four specific business functions. The first of these benefits should be close to the heart of any CFO…

项目财务控制

许多以项目驱动的企业的首席财务官几乎没有真正的可见性和对项目财务状况的控制。在一项研究中新利luckTSheets and zlien, most construction companies said they face cash flow problems. Why? Because while they are working in the company’s system of record—be that full ERP or just a financials package—individual projects are tracked in disconnected spreadsheets. And those spreadsheets:

• Do not follow any consistent methodology for recording performance of work on contracts or how that ties into liquidity or payment events.
• Do not provide visibility into whether revenue flowing into the project through applications for payment will cover the costs of labor, subcontractors or materials that are being expended.
• Cannot intelligently identify, allocate and manage risk in a way that protects not just project cash flow but company cash flow.

Furthermore, these spreadsheets will not enable executives to intelligently or accurately estimate and anticipate each project’s end game when it comes to cost, cash and revenue. Nor will they enforce a consistent approach to estimating or project financial management so that a CFO is comparing apples to apples when she or he reviews the project portfolio.

With accurate information on the cash position, an engineering or construction firm is in a better position to ensure not only that they have enough cash on hand, but that they don’t have too much when that money could be invested in other ways to grow the business. International contractors must also have the treasury management tools ensure they have cash in right currency, with appropriate hedging strategies in place.

消除这些现金流问题不仅有助于提高工资，并掌握分包商的外部财务义务。它还将使执行团队有信心对技术和流程变更进行积极的投资，这将使公司最终达到新的水平。

更好地控制现金流的能力，同时将现金融入项目绩效和任务完成，将使执行团队能够自由进行真正投资和发展业务的自由，即使他们消除了负面的财务和客户体验对他们当前的现金流问题。

Commercial Control and Change Management

一旦提案成功并变成合同，工程和建筑公司必须开始执行该合同并管理项目绩效。但是对于大多数承包商来说，该项目产生的总收入中有10％至15％或以上是通过变更订单和合同修正案。当该百分比波动甚至3％至4％时，这可能会影响项目收入几百万美元。因此，在施工ERP中，积极计划围绕应急方案的能力变得非常重要。

有时，这些变化是由于最初范围的任何不足所致，但是更多的是在项目期间的发现或在多年大规模开发项目中的更改优先级引起的。我们可能会期望在非常动态的设置（例如重建）中，您正在现场学习现有结构的状况以及自适应重用所需的努力水平。在公寓或租赁空间（例如办公室或零售开发项目）中，将按照流畅的时间表定义总单位，单位大小，饰面和其他项目详细信息的数量。

Construction ERP should be able to quickly add change orders to the total project scope, and into current operational project plans. The software should also give engineering visibility into the nature of and anticipated degree of change associated with similar projects. But once it is issued, a contractor must set up a change order in construction ERP—defining the goal of the change and record it against the appropriate steps in the contract. Each change must be automatically pushed through approval and review stage stages and gates, and construction

ERP must also enable reporting and visualization of the impact of the change on financial performance, required resources and project execution.

Once the site plan and construction schedule reflect anticipated change orders, an engineering and construction company can avoid expensive rework. Having to rip and replace recent construction or failing to prepare to extend utilities given subsequent project phases can result in significant waste. Visibility into the extent and timing of these changes may also help with project financing as lenders can have visibility of the expected cost profile of the project further into the future.

此变更管理过程还必须结构结构，以增加利润率和收入。因此，承包商应该能够在ERP中识别项目的核心价值，并确定将满足项目所有者需求的更改或其他服务，同时增加项目收入和利润率。它必须最大限度地提高门口每个机会的收入和利润潜力。

现场施工管理

建造可能是具有挑战性的，因为在不同地理位置进行工作，并且通过合同，分包合同甚至合资企业在公司实体之间迅速进行价值流动。这意味着建筑ERP需要：

• 整个套件的平板电脑上的移动访问功能强大的功能
• Purpose-specific apps for mobile workers on site
• 分包商和供应商通过门户和应用程序程序界面（API）直接交互的有效手段
• Features that make it easily opened up to subcontractors make it easier to assess performance of the site. This provides thorough and timely insights on completion against project milestones as well as quality, health, safety and the environment (QHSE) incidents and compliance. Executives must be notified as soon as a quality incident on site happens. Construction ERP will addend it to a QHSE report and provide a means for causation analysis

Most contractors lack visibility into QHSE issues until long after the fact, and once they are aware, they cannot put causality against each incident or patterns of incidents. But construction ERP should provide traceability into whether each worker has proper documentation and credentials for the work and has been issued proper safety equipment. The software should require that every job have a corresponding method statement that documents how incidents will be avoided and how well they are executing against that method.

它是可取的和令人满意的走在年代ite and get that immediate sense of whether your people are working safe, or progress against known milestones. Remember that while every ERP system in the world will beat you at math, there is no software system that can beat you at walking around and talking to people on site—getting line of sight confirmation of progress reports, and factoring weather conditions into the plan. Maybe there was a torrential rain and you need to factor in dewatering because the trenches are flooded. Construction ERP should enable identification of risks like these early on and provide pathways to quickly adjust a project plan as needed.

结构化系统,ERP给你冷,哈哈rd facts to bring to bear on the various challenges that do come up on site. Maybe on the subcontractor is claiming in the project plan that brick work is 50 percent complete. But then you look at it and it looks like 10 percent. Maybe the subcontractor says they cannot finish according to the plan. Do you have the information to challenge what you are being told and find solutions? And can you attach the photo you took on site and addend it to an appropriate document—say that mason’s application for payment—in the system?

Subcontractor Management

Software can help you manage subcontractors against defined deliverables But long before this, construction ERP should eliminate extensive phone and email continuity with subcontractors, starting from letting bids to subs in the first place. The bid-letting, bid receipt, evaluation, subcontractor selection—all of these processes should be automated. The scope of the contracted workflows into the project plan. Once subcontracts are awarded and work begins against a scope of work, construction ERP should manage:

• Subcontract performance valuations against the contractual position, authorizing progress against benchmarks to approve payment
• Risk and opportunity management to monitor and attach risk to scope creep, and to provide forward-looking what-if risk scenarios and risk mitigation tools
• Subcontractor forecasting for estimate-to-complete (ETC) and estimate-at-complete

适当的施工ERP应用程序将把精益过程带到外部各方执行大量工作的环境中。必须消除行政开销，ERP必须成为Prime，分包商，材料供应商甚至项目所有者的实时协作空间。

挑战现状

有可量化的智能方法可以利用工程和建筑业务中的建筑ERP。这些好处中的一些（例如上面引用的好处）可能是通过减少未增值的工作或通过更好的可见性来改善决策做出的。但这只是起点。随着每个工程和建筑公司都在寻找自己的优势和缺陷，他们的个人市场和竞争对手，他们可以利用该软件使他们能够以新的方式实际开展业务，从而通过新型的工程和建筑服务创造新的收入来源。潜力仅受您识别问题的能力和设想以竞争对手无法做到的方式修复它们的方法的限制。