Heerema Marine Contractors Boost Cost Estimating Accuracy with Cleopatra

As one of the largest maritime technical service providers in the world, Heerema Marine Contractors is involved in a large number of diverse and complex projects around the world. This results in significant pressure on the internal organization, amongst which is the department responsible for creating cost estimates for all these projects. To allow this department to work even more efficiently, Heerema started looking for a software as an alternative to the one developed in-house that was used until then.

After an assessment of the various software systems available on the market, Cleopatra Enterprise was chosen partly because of its flexibility and the diverse set of projects that could be estimated. Another important factor in this decision was the possibility of Cleopatra Enterprise supporting Heerema in further increasing the effectiveness of the business processes within the estimating department.

Heerema operates in the offshore energy industry, where efficiency is of the utmost importance. It is key to quickly respond to changes in the market, where commercial proposals are always highly competitive. The projects are also very diverse, from installing a production platform to laying subsea pipelines.

Each project’s identified scenarios are assessed on their effectiveness and related risks. This process is supported by the extensive possibilities for estimating and project analytics that Cleopatra has to offer. This allows Heerema to continuously improve the accuracy of their estimates, as well as the time needed to create them, resulting in significant time and cost savings.

The implementation process of Cleopatra Enterprise was always guided by  Cleopatra’s team to ensure the cost estimating software‘s available functionalities were used in the best possible way. Heerema wasn’t an exception there; through a so-called Need Analysis, the existing processes, needs, and requirements regarding cost estimating software were identified. This also provided insights into how these processes could be optimized according to the AACE principles.

As part of the implementation, Cleopatra Enterprise analyzed data from historical Heerema projects as well as external data and used this to compose a custom-made cost library. This data is also used to develop parametric models to estimate standard activities quickly and easily.

Now, Cleopatra’s integration with SAP & Oracle Primavera provides better alignment with other departments within the organization. Thanks to the implementation and use of Cleopatra Enterprise, the estimating department was professionalized further.

• Ability to respond to inquiries from the market faster and more accurately
• Easily analyze, calculate, and compare different scenarios
• More effective work processes save time and money
• Comprehensive, customized plug-ins, for process optimization, interfaces, and management reports