Cost engineering is a multi-faceted discipline involving estimating, scheduling, cost control and risk management to manage cost and performance through the full life cycle of enterprise level projects. Effective project management requires the use of standardized processes and advanced software tools to ensure that an accurate and reliable insight is given into the project progress and status.
Estimating and cost control: Cleopatra Enterprise
Cleopatra Enterprise is a comprehensive cost estimating and project controls software solution that offers extensive cost management tools for the full project life cycle. It is a multi-faceted, tightly-integrated system that encompasses estimating, budgeting, planning and cost control to measure cost and productivity. It can assist you in managing and controlling your contracts better than spreadsheets or point solutions.
Cleopatra Enterprise enables you to have a detailed insight in your cost information for EPC, maintenance and turnaround projects covering Class 5 – Class 1 estimating processes, conversion of estimates to budgets, and managing costs in the project execution phase.
A strong feature is that Cleopatra Enterprise is developed together with expert cost engineers, who use Cleopatra a consultancy basis. Therefore, Cleopatra is developed by and for cost engineers.
Scheduling: Primavera
Primavera P6 Professional Project Management is the recognised standard for high-performance project management software, is designed to handle large-scale, highly sophisticated and multifaceted projects. Massive data requires sophisticated yet highly flexible organisation tools to provide you a multitude of ways to organise projects and resources. In addition, Primavera P6 can be integrated with most financial, ERP and cost estimating software like Cleopatra Enterprise.
Risk management: Crystal Ball
Oracle Crystal Ball is the leading spreadsheet-based application for predictive modeling, forecasting, simulation, and optimisation. It gives you unparalleled insight into the critical factors affecting risk. With Crystal Ball, you can make tactical decisions to reach your objectives and gain a competitive edge under even the most uncertain market conditions. You can use historical and current data to create accurate, predictive models and search for solutions that take into account market uncertainty and constraints.
Interfacing and sharing data: Excel
Microsoft Excel is one of the software packages that changes the way we work on large spreadsheets, share and analyse data. Because of its flexibility it is able to cover the basic functionality you need to get started with the above practices. This is also a feature that is the cause for many errors and mistakes because the spreadsheet can be altered even without you knowing. Therefore, for more advanced processes and techniques that today’s businesses require, its most useful feature is the fact that almost every computer has got it installed per default. This means that even when stakeholders don’t share the same advanced software solutions, Excel can often act as a data carrier able to interface between tools and report information to third parties.
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