Recent PVD experience highlighted the need to remember that there is a substantial difference between the quantities that are produced by the designer and those that need to be procured by the project. It affects both the cost forecast and the efficiency of construction if insufficient quantities have been ordered. Our new White Paper 2023-11 ‘Understanding the Impact of Forgetting Quantity Allowances When Buying Material for Industrial Projects’ reminds some basic rules about bulk quantities for industrial projects.

Inadequate estimation of quantity allowances can lead to either ordering insufficient, or excessive material. For the design related allowances, it may also affect weight control, which in certain instances is an essential parameter for infrastructure performance (floating infrastructure, modules that need to be heavy-lifted, seismic calculations etc).

We still sometimes (too often) find projects that completely forget to include allowances on top of the design software material quantities, which leads to lacking material when the project reaches 70-80% progress, with substantial consequences in terms of cost and reputation.

Bulk material ordering is too often not taken sufficiently seriously in project planning, maybe because it looks less noble or urgent than complicated equipment procurement. Still, inadequate quantities ordering may lead to significant consequences.

Projects must fully understand the difference between designed, erected and procured quantities and the ratios between those quantities to adequately forecast material cost and ensure that there is no stoppage of the project construction due to lack of material. Less mature organisations may lack precise allowance ratios based on experience or forget to apply those altogether, leading to situations with potentially very damaging consequential impacts, in particular when bulk material is missing while the construction team and the site are mobilised. Discover more in our new White Paper 2023-11 ‘Understanding the Impact of Forgetting Quantity Allowances When Buying Material for Industrial Projects’

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2023-11_forgetting_quantity_allowances_v0.pdf