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What is

Knowledge Base for Project-Based Industries

A structured knowledge base covering the core concepts that define how capital projects are planned, controlled, and delivered.

From project-based business models and industry-specific ERP architecture to risk management, cost control, scheduling, quality assurance, resource management, stakeholder collaboration, and digital transformation — each topic is explored through the lens of construction, marine, shipbuilding, mining, and project-based manufacturing.

Knowledge base for project-based industries covering ERP, risk, cost control, and digital transformation
What Is a Project-Based Business?
The economic and operational logic behind contractors, shipyards, fabricators, and mining operators — where every engagement is temporary, high-risk, and quantity-driven.
What Is an Industry-Specific ERP?
A purpose-built enterprise system designed for the operational realities of construction, marine, shipbuilding, and mining — not a generic platform with bolt-on modules.
What Is Risk Management in Capital Projects?
Systematic identification, assessment, and control of uncertainty across cost, schedule, and performance — because risk in capital projects is structural, not exceptional.
What Is Project Cost Control?
Tracking, forecasting, and managing expenditure from estimate through final account — where forward-looking cost visibility protects margin, not post-factum reporting.
What Is Project Time Management?
Planning, sequencing, and controlling activities to deliver capital projects on schedule — because scheduling is a control discipline, not just a planning exercise.
What Is Project Quality Management?
Ensuring deliverables meet specifications through inspection, testing, and certification — because quality in construction is measured, not assumed.
What Is Asset and Resource Management?
Controlling materials, equipment, labour, and subcontractors across project sites — where resource visibility directly drives project profitability.
What Is Stakeholder Collaboration?
Aligning owners, consultants, contractors, and subcontractors around shared project objectives — where contractual frameworks determine collaboration success or failure.
What Is Digital Transformation in the Build World?
Replacing fragmented tools with integrated, project-centric systems — because technology alone doesn’t solve operational problems in construction, marine, and mining.

What is project control in project-based industries?

Project control is the discipline of measuring cost, time, quality, risk and resources against one shared structure of the work, so that management sees deviations while they can still be corrected. In construction, shipbuilding, marine and offshore, mining and project-based manufacturing, this structure is the Bill of Quantities (BoQ), the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and the cost codes. This knowledge base explains each concept that project control depends on, for the directors who make decisions with it.

How do these concepts connect?

Each concept answers a different management question. They produce control only when they share the same data structure.

Concept Management question Typical failure when it is isolated
Project-based business How does the company earn money from temporary, unique projects? Company KPIs that hide project-level losses
Industry-specific ERP Does the system model the work the way the industry does? Generic modules held together by spreadsheets
Project cost control Where will the final cost land, and why? Reports that explain the past, not the forecast
Project time management Is the schedule linked to cost and progress? A schedule updated separately from cost
Project quality management Is the delivered work certified against the specification? Rework and non-conformities found too late
Risk management in capital projects Which uncertainties threaten margin and dates? Risk registers not linked to budgets
Asset and resource management Are materials, plant, labour and subcontractors used as planned? Idle plant and unplanned purchases
Stakeholder collaboration Do owner, consultant, contractor and subcontractors work from the same data? Disputes over quantities and variations
Digital transformation in the build world Does new technology fix the process or only digitise it? Tools that add data entry but not control

Why does the BoQ ↔ WBS ↔ Cost Codes link matter?

The BoQ defines what the client pays for. The WBS defines how the work is executed. The cost codes define how the company records cost. When the three structures are linked item by item, every quantity, activity and cost entry traces to the others. Earned value, cost-to-complete forecasts and variation claims then come from one source instead of three reconciled spreadsheets. ProjectVIEW ERP is built on this trilateral link — see the Cost Control module.

Which industries does this knowledge base cover?

The concepts apply to every company that delivers unique, contract-based work:

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between project cost control and cost accounting?

Cost accounting records what was spent, by account. Project cost control compares committed and actual cost with the budget and earned value of each work item, and forecasts the final cost. Accounting looks back; cost control looks forward.

Why does a generic ERP struggle to control capital projects?

A generic ERP is structured around departments and accounts. Capital projects are structured around contracts, quantities and activities. Without a native BoQ and WBS, project data lives outside the ERP and control depends on manual reconciliation.

Which discipline should a company fix first?

Start with cost control. It is the point where quantities, schedule, procurement and subcontracts meet, so weaknesses in the other disciplines become visible there first.

How long does it take to implement ProjectVIEW ERP?

A typical implementation takes 5 to 7 months, depending on the modules, the number of entities and the data migration.

See the BoQ ↔ WBS ↔ Cost Codes framework applied to your type of project.

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