A logistics execution plan (LEP) is the document that sets out how everything an EPC project buys will physically reach site: the routes and transport modes, who is responsible for what, the Incoterms, the packing and marking rules, the customs strategy and the insurance arrangements. It belongs in the project execution plan, and it should be written before the first purchase order leaves the building.
Why it exists
Without an LEP, transport decisions get made one purchase order at a time, by whoever happens to be placing it. Each decision looks reasonable on its own. Together they produce a project where three suppliers ship to three different ports under three different Incoterms, nobody owns the customs position, and the first oversized item reveals that the chosen quay cannot take the load.
The plan is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the moment where the project decides, once, how material will flow — and writes it down so that procurement, engineering and construction are all working from the same assumption.
When it is written
During FEED or basic engineering, and certainly before equipment is split into transportable pieces. Three things are fixed early and are expensive to change later:
- Module sizes and weights, which determine whether something travels as breakbulk, on a heavy-lift carrier or on a semi-submersible.
- Fabrication locations, which determine the sailing distance, the load ports and the customs regime.
- The receiving site, its quay, its access roads and its laydown capacity.
An LEP written after award can still organise the execution well. It cannot undo a design that produced a module two metres too wide for the only road to site.
What goes in it
| Section | What it settles |
|---|---|
| Scope and interfaces | Which scopes of supply the plan covers, and where responsibility passes between owner, EPC contractor, forwarder and carrier |
| Transport concept | Routes per origin, modes, ports, marshalling yards and the last mile to site |
| Incoterms | Which term applies per category of purchase, and where cost and risk actually change hands |
| Packing and marking | Export packing standards, preservation, marking and the shipping documents required with each consignment |
| Customs | Export, import, temporary admission, origin, sanctions screening and who holds the declarations |
| Insurance and claims | Marine cargo cover, deductibles, survey regime and the claims procedure |
| Heavy and out-of-gauge | Route surveys, engineered transport, lifting points, sea fastening and marine warranty survey |
| Schedule interface | How required-on-site dates translate backwards into ex-works dates per supplier |
| Contracting strategy | What is tendered, in which packages, and against which contract forms |
| Reporting | What is measured, how often, and who sees it |
Who owns it
On most projects the EPC contractor writes it and the owner approves it. That arrangement works as long as the owner reads it as a commitment rather than a formality. The sections worth scrutinising are the Incoterms table, the customs responsibilities and the schedule interface, because those three are where disagreements surface later and always at the worst moment.
A required-on-site date is not a shipping date. Between them sit production, inspection, packing, inland transport, port cut-off, sailing time, discharge, customs and the final move. On a deepsea route with a heavy-lift sailing, that chain is routinely twelve to sixteen weeks. If the LEP does not spell it out per lane, procurement will place orders against dates that were never achievable.
Where plans go wrong
- Written too late. After award, when the design and the suppliers are already fixed.
- Copied from the last project. Different ports, different module sizes, different rules.
- Incoterms chosen by habit. EXW across the board shifts every risk and every arrangement onto the project, usually without the capacity to handle it.
- No owner of customs. Everyone assumes the forwarder has it, until a shipment sits at the border.
- No reporting. A plan that is never measured is a plan that quietly stops being followed.
How long it needs to be
Long enough to answer the questions above without ambiguity, and short enough that a project engineer will actually read it. Twenty to forty pages plus annexes is normal for a large project. The annexes — the Incoterms matrix, the route survey summaries and the lane-by-lane lead times — are what people use day to day.