The roles of the vendor and EPCs in the project bidding process

In my experience, engineering projects are bid most efficiently when the EPCs (engineering, procurement and construction companies) provide quality process data to the automation vendor’s experts. EPC engineers have limited hours within their project budget to complete a design and when insufficient information is provided the vendor then responds with a long list of technical queries before the appropriate options can be selected.

It therefore becomes the role of the vendor to coach the EPCs on the correct information to provide. If the vendors coach their EPCs on the selection criteria for their equipment, it will involve defining what each criterion means, the applicable standards, and what meaningful responses to the selection criteria there are. Only then will the end user will receive fit-for-purpose selections.

Vendors understand that perfect information is not always available at the design phase. Unless the project’s applications are groundbreaking, which is rarely the case, the vendor’s experienced experts are likely to have seen the application before. In the case of Australia’s mining industry, it’s highly likely that the project will be related to alumina, gold, copper, silver (or as a mixed poly metal), lithium, iron ore, nickel or coal.

For typical valve bids that are executed we typically see a 98% success rate when good information is provided. It’s a rare case that 100% of valves will work flawlessly from day one, whereas each plant, albeit the same process as another one, will always have its own subtle differences to another plant using the same process.

When poor data (or no data) is provided, the likelihood of successful selection of the correct equipment significantly reduces. In the valve business, the selection criterion that is most often not considered during the design phase is cycle rate. To not consider the cycle rate is to do so at your peril: low cycling (not cycled for weeks or months) and high cycling (i.e. every 45 mins) have become significant pain points for many process plants. It is important to always consider cycle rate on every valve project.

Process plants that are built to a price point, generally under fixed price EPC contracts, with a one-specification-fits-all valve selection usually result in significant pain for the end user in the years following start up – and in my experience, to replace all not fit-for-purpose selections with proper selections is a 10-year process. Easily executable improvements get squeezed into maintenance budgets whereas more significant ones enter the slower capital cycle, awaiting their turn for execution.

Having worked for all three parties in the process plant industry – end users, EPCs and vendors – I can say that it is important to engage your vendors, ask as many questions as you need to understand the options, and have your vendors coach you as necessary. Your vendors really do want you to succeed. Don’t blindly put the most economical selection into every application as the pain will be felt for years to come. *Tim Howe is Knife Gate Valve Business Development Manager ANZ at Emerson, and is a Chemical Engineer who has spent the last 10 years in the mining valves space. Tim places a focus on creating meaningful symbiotic relationships with EPCs working on projects within the ANZ mining industry.

Top image credit: iStock.com/Alfio Manciagli