Procurement Process In EPC

In a normal EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) scenario the Procurement process is considered as a chain of activities interlinked inside and outside the organizations premises. Procurement consists of personnel who take care of Sourcing, Buying, Expediting, Inspecting, Logistics and Inventory Management activities. These managing resources are supported by document controllers and material coordinator. A normal EPC organization Procurement function looks like this

• Procurement Head
• Lead Buyers
• Buyers
• Expeditors
• Lead Inspectors
• Inspectors
• Material Controller
• Store Keeper
All the above roles are a standard structure of any EPC organization. Procurement Head handles the resource related activities to support office and projects by delivering procurement functional activities by linking themselves to the project management. A Lead Buyer leads any project related activities below whom buyers, expeditors, inspectors will be working towards the project needs and requirements to complete it in a successful way. Buyer normally perform the sourcing activities which then followed by Sending RFQs ( Request for Quotes ), resolving technical clarifications, preparing a Commercial Bid Tabulation with all technical parameters compared commercially which will help the Lead Buyer to select final bidders for negotiations. Buyer negotiates with suppliers on the commercial terms and submits his recommendation to the Lead Buyer who in turn will start the process for final ordering. During the process of sending inquiries and placing purchase orders and awaiting for deliveries, expeditor comes into play their role to rush the process of getting technical documents, quotes, materials or services to be delivered at right time.

Another supporting process which helps to check the quality of service or material and the process of supplying would be done by inspectors who will either check for correctness of the entire product realisation process based on the procedure laid by the supplier or taking samples for inspecting. After inspection is over the materials are packed and sent to the delivery site locations by road, sea or air depending on the size of materials and requirement schedule at site. After reaching site a post supply inspection at site is done. At last delivery receipts are prepared by the material coordinator and approved by site in charge and gets forwarded to accounts for final payments.

Veerapandian, a Mechanical Engineering Professional interested in writing articles about anything he feels interesting and would serve the common people needs

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