Brief

Foster Wheeler is one of the world's most prestigious engineering and construction companies. Its reputation for delivering safe, successful projects on time and within budget is recognised throughout the oil and gas industries worldwide.

Its main engineering centres in the UK, USA, Italy, Spain, France, Thailand, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and India undertake all types of projects from feasibility studies and front end engineering design (FEED) to large, complex engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts.

The global nature of the company's business demands an estimating and cost management system that is not only sophisticated, reliable and consistent, but also meets Foster Wheeler's wider business needs.

Led by its Houston, Reading and Milan offices, the company's engineering and construction business invested in a major corporate initiative to evaluate the effectiveness of its estimating capability and to then validate its preferred solution - the implementation of RIB Construction Suite.

Critical issues include the need to work in multiple currencies and in a multi-national environment, to identify and manage risk effectively, to ensure conformity and compliance with company standards and to improve work processes to produce consistent, accurate and reliable estimates.

Solution

The selection of RIB Construction Suite is delivering significant benefits to Foster Wheeler. The system is being exploited on a wide variety of oil and gas projects worldwide, including gas field developments, LNG (liquefied natural gas) facilities, gas terminals and gas-to-liquids plants throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions.

RIB Construction Suite is able to handle the diversity of engineering involved in these projects, including process and systems, civil and structural, mechanical and electrical, and control and instrumentation.

Depending on project type, the system can handle estimates covering more than five million engineering man hours and 160 million construction hours.

RIB Construction Suite holds estimates from more than 100 sub-contractors and suppliers covering vast quantities of equipment and materials, typically 500 major equipment items, 40,000 tonnes of concrete, 10,000 tonnes of structural steel, 200 km of piping and 150 km of electrical cable.

Result

"RIB Construction Suite was easy to install and is bursting with functionality. According to our evaluation criteria, it's the best product on the market that meets the holistic criteria of the estimating life-cycle - from estimate production and budget allocation through to EPC cost management and project close-out. We are delighted with the robust nature of its performance. It continues to meet our operational needs and puts us well ahead of the game in pricing and managing project data."

Tim Mote
Global IT Manager
Foster Wheeler Energy Limited

"We have developed a close working relationship with RIB Software that continues to flourish. The phased implementation of RIB Construction Suite throughout our worldwide office network allows us to gain maximum user buy-in' and ownership that is critical to its acceptance."

Trevor Staples
Manager, Estimating
Foster Wheeler Energy Limited