Michael S. Wilson

For any major project, it’s likely that every single dollar spent on that project will have gone through the procurement department. Think about it … the entire project essentially lives in a big stack of purchase orders – contracts that define the supply and services, terms and conditions, and other instructions for vendors.  There’s a lot riding on the successful execution and timing of those contracts. Without a smooth and efficient procurement team – and the right tools – to manage the timely delivery of the volumes of materials and services required; a project could be doomed. Effectively strangled by the overwhelming amount of data and logistics faced by big-project procurement.   Many organizations try to manage the logistics risks by inserting dependencies, milestones and critical-path items into the schedule. But schedules are largely theoretical. If you don’t have visibility and deep reach into how your vendors are performing, you won’t have the key information to modify that schedule (and project budget) to reflect newly forecasted delivery dates that result from delays in supply or service. The information that goes into, and comes out of, procurement is vital to project success. The rest of the project team needs to have continuous detailed reporting on the status of all vendor deliverables. The whole team needs to be in sync with what’s happening beyond their walls and beyond the jobsite. Delays and failures most often occur long before the scheduled delivery date. Delays in fabrication, shipping, customs, or pending labor issues are just a few examples of the types of upstream challenges that can lead to major setbacks in productivity. Just being at the jobsite isn’t going to give you information like that. The

Hands up if you don't know what an Expeditor is Oh don't worry - you're not alone if you're not too sure what an expeditor is or does. The expeditor is just that quintessential guy-behind-the-guy that plays a pivotal role in successful project execution. That's all. The management of critical path items in large construction projects usually involves the coordination of multiple events coming together at exactly the right time. In order for work to be completed smoothly, you need the crews, equipment, materials, drawings, instructions, etc. to all be there at-the-ready, with all preconditions and preparations met, at precisely the right time. For most organizations, the responsibility for the logistics in making sure this all happens without a snag, is perceived as the job of the Project Manager. While true, the project manager is the face of project coordination, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that enable the project manager to achieve the success they’re looking for. The often-forgotten-about-guy that plays a fundamental role in construction logistics, is the procurement Expeditor. In procurement management, the expeditor is the person who rides the backs of the suppliers and contractors to organize the forecasted delivery dates of equipment, materials and contracted work. He or she spends hours communicating with vendors, and monitoring the incremental progress and milestones made by, for example, fabricators. They feed those delivery forecasts and logistics details to the project manager so that they can then have accurate timing information. It’s most often the case that original delivery dates set by suppliers are delayed for one reason or another. It might be that the fabricator was bang-on-time, but the equipment got caught up in customs. Or there was a mining