Marshside maintains and encourages a strong belief in self improvement and through the combination of our corporate experience allied to feedback from both Clients and vendors we continue to improve our services. We also share lessons learned with new Clients and new vendors wherever it is considered beneficial. Following are some of our key lessons learned that we believe actively assist the project procurement process:

Early involvement is critical to the overall success of the procurement process. Involvement in the early days with direct input to the development of the purchase order package(s) will, we believe, promote clarity and understanding of the project requirements to field personnel. Additionally, detailed knowledge of the key packages will be gained with special focus on understanding the implications of late delivery along with any other project specific deliverables.

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Occasionally, Purchase Order packages are developed in haste due to schedule demands, and contractual matters may not be fully addressed. The main consequence of poorly emplaced (or even missing) contractual points is that the project team (including field personnel) may be left with little or very much reduced leverage with which to persuade vendors to comply with the Purchase Order requirements. Marshside recommends that all Purchase Orders are independently reviewed prior to issue to ensure that effective and complete contractual points are included and that they are clearly identified within the document. Further, it is prudent to ensure that any contractual variations agreed during vendor negotiations should be fully recorded and included in either the main Purchase Order or in an added and fully referenced appendix.

Frequently, changes to the initial issue of technical and commercial data packs are advised directly to the vendor without the field personnel being advised. The lack of up to date information can cause difficulties during field visits as personnel can spend time reconciling the data packs rather than reviewing status. It is therefore essential that any data pack changes are fully recorded and advised to field personnel in parallel to the vendor.

Inspection assignments are frequently identified early in the procurement cycle, via the approved Quality Plan. Expediting assignments however are frequently addressed late in the procurement cycle when the project team realizes that a particular vendor is not meeting the package schedule requirements. Marshside recommend reviewing package expediting requirements at the start of the procurement cycle with respect to schedule criticality, package complexity, deliverable requirements and previous experience with the vendor. This process can identify particular packages where early expediting involvement should be utilised in order to prevent problems developing at later stages, thus rendering effective resolution much more difficult.

Some major Clients can have several different individual Orders/projects running in parallel at the same vendors. Frequently the Purchase Orders for identical / similar packages can have substantially different deliverable requirements – which can cause vendor confusion. More significantly though, is the situation where different projects “compete” with one another within the same vendor premises. This project rivalry can result in cost and schedule overruns for all of the projects. This situation can be avoided by more effective inter-project communication, and by more prudent use of shared resources such as procurement reviews and the services of field inspectors and expeditors.