5 th Annual Construction Law Summit Construction Delay

5 th Annual Construction Law Summit Construction Delay Claim Analysis Speaker Jon Grove Berkeley Research Group

Delay Analysis Best Practices About me: Jon Grove • Over 20 years experience in the Commercial Construction Advisory Business • Specialize in Project Controls, Scheduling, Schedule Analysis • Certified as Planning and Scheduling Professional in 2010 (PSP) • Worked on every major type of construction job except Nuclear 2

Delay Analysis Best Practices Afternoons’ Objectives • Why is Delay Analysis Necessary? • What can Impact a Construction Schedule? • Steps in Performing a Delay Analysis • Summarizing the Baseline Master Schedule • Choosing a Delay Analysis method • The critical path and why it is important • Types of Delay • Finding the As-Built Critical Path • Choosing the right Analysis method • Questions to ask a Delay Expert 3

Delay Analysis Best Practices Why is Delay Analysis Necessary in Construction? 4 • Most Project Bids and Baseline Schedules are “Best Case” scenarios • Project Master Schedules are typically complex, with a lot of moving parts • Schedules and Budgets are generally impacted for multiple, overlapping reasons • Lack of strong controls in Scheduling, and Data Management • Construction is expensive and there is a lot of money at stake • A majority of Budget overruns are caused by delay related issues

Delay Analysis Best Practices What can Impact the Construction Schedule? Engineers & Architects • Poor Design • Incomplete Design • Slow Response Time 5 Owners • Excessive Changes • Delayed Approvals/ Permits • Prolonged Planning • Delayed Payment Construction Managers • Poor Planning/ Scheduling • Poor Contract Management • Coordination Issues • Unachievable Schedule • Poor Data Management • Mismanagement of Resources Contractors & Sub. Contractors Other • Unachievable Bid • Poor Productivity/ Performance • Mismanagement of Resources • Labor Shortages • Default • Unanticipated Weather • Changing Market Conditions • Unforeseen Conditions • Force Majeure

Delay Analysis Best Practices Steps in Performing a Delay Analysis 6 • Locate and Summarize the “Baseline” Master Schedule • Gain an understanding of the Planned Critical Path of the Master Plan • Gain an understanding of the intended trade flow throughout the project • Generate an As-Built Schedule • Compare the As-Planned Baseline Schedule to the As-Built Schedule • Perform a holistic review to pinpoint delayed areas/issues; try to find a theme • Review contemporaneous information to determine the As-Built Critical Path • Choose a methodology to best show your Critical Path delay • Measure Critical Path Delay to the Project over time • Determine Causation for the Critical Delay(s)

Delay Analysis Best Practices Summarizing the Baseline Master Schedule • Why is this important? • Creating a summary makes it fast and easy to understand the planned work and logic for entire project • An overall summary level makes it easier to find assign delays to specific trades • Summary levels are easier to talk about then a fully expanded nonsummarized schedule 7

Delay Analysis Best Practices Guidelines to Summarize a Baseline Schedule • Review the Schedule in its native format. i. e. Primavera, MS Project… • List all trade activities by Area/Location • Examine the Summary Baseline Schedule to understand the logic of trades and resources • Highlight the Planned Critical Path in the Summarized Baseline Schedule • Summarize the (level 2) Baseline Schedule to fit on one page for collaboration with clients and peers (level 1) 8

Delay Analysis Best Practices Level 1 Baseline Schedule 9

Delay Analysis Best Practices Level 1 Schedule 10

Delay Analysis Best Practices Level 2 Schedule 11

Delay Analysis Best Practices Level 2 Schedule 12

Delay Analysis Best Practices Choosing a Delay Analysis Technique Five Most Popular • Impacted As-Planned • Time Impact Analysis (TIA) • Windows Analysis • As-Planned vs. As-Built • Collapsed As-Built (“But For”) 13

Delay Analysis Best Practices Impacted As-Planned • Involves Insertion or addition of activities that represent delay into the baseline schedule • Used to quantify delays for contemporaneous requests for time extensions • Prospective type of analysis, to determine the likely impact of a particular event(s) • The resultant impact of the events shown on the completion date is then said to be the critical delay impact(s) 14

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Delay Analysis Best Practices As-Planned vs. As-Built • Identify the latest schedule update for the project • Summarize and compare the As-Built Schedule to match the Baseline Summary • If no Schedules exist. Use other project documents. Daily Reports, Site Photos, Weekly Reports, Payment applications to determine the start and finish dates matching your summary baseline schedule • Identify difference in durations and delays to start and finish dates • Identify if a particular trade is impacting and driving delays to other trades • Document all delay and verify with contemporaneous project documents using daily reports, submitted schedules, payment applications 16

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Delay Analysis Best Practices Time Impact Analysis (TIA) • Recommended by the Society of Construction Law Delay Disruption Protocol (SCL) for ongoing projects • Prospective (Forward Looking) and dynamic • Schedule is updated to a point in time just before the delay event • Insert delay activities as close to the status date as possible • Requires good As-Built data • Best when used during a project but questionable method of assessing a delay in post-contract dispute resolutions • Logic must be capable of correctly simulating the likely effect of the delay event • The delay events introduced in the analysis should be based only upon information known at the date of the update 18

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Delay Analysis Best Practices Windows Contemporaneous Analysis • Examination of the dynamic nature of the critical path from period to period • Performed retrospective but a forward-looking technique • Typically starts with the baseline schedule and proceeds from update to update, tracking progress along the critical and near critical path(s) • Requires good As-Built data • The schedules in each ‘window’ is updated to reflect the actual duration and sequence at the time of the delay while remaining as-planned schedule beyond the window period is maintained 20

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Delay Analysis Best Practices Collapsed As-Built (“But for”) Analysis • Retrospective technique • Begins with As-Built schedule then subtracts activities representing delays • No baseline or contemporaneous schedule updates exist or are flawed to the extent that they are not useable • Requires good As-Built data • Requires a detailed and logic linked schedule 22

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Delay Analysis Best Practices The As-Built Critical Path and why it’s so Important • It is the longest logically connected path from the start to the completion of the project • The As-Built Critical Path typically has no float (or slack) or gaps in time and any increase in any durations on that path will impact the completion of the project • Only events that extend the duration of an as-built critical path activity will impact the completion of the project • Identifying the As-Built critical path is the single most important step in any delay analysis • Once delay(s) is identified on the as-built critical path, causation of those delays need to be attributed to the proper party 25

Delay Analysis Best Practices Types of Delay • Excusable Compensable – The Contractor was delayed and had no part in causing the delay (“Out of Contractors Control”); granted time and money for extended General Conditions, acceleration and/or impact cost • Excusable Non Compensable or Concurrent – The Contractor was equally involved/responsible for a delay, along with another party; granted time, but no money for extended General Conditions, acceleration and/or impact cost • Non Excusable Non Compensable – The Contractor was solely responsible for a delay. No money and No time granted 26

Delay Analysis Best Practices Finding the As-Built Critical Path • Review the Schedule Updates • Were Schedule updates used to actually manage the job vs just updated to show an unrealistic project completion? • Does the critical path clearly show a delay and the project completion date remains the same? • Do trades start getting ‘stacked’ up? Are there a lot of logic changes? • Do activities start to decrease in duration? • If the schedules look like it was properly updated and realistic, the critical path can be documented through the contemporaneous schedule updates and a “Windows Analysis” can be done • If the updates are questionable or outright unusable, an As-Planned vs As-Built analysis should be done 27

Delay Analysis Best Practices Determining the As-Built Critical Path • • 28 Calculation Method • Determine differences by comparing Late Dates to Actual Dates • Chart it or enter into a program to produce a Gant Chart • Compare the differences Examine Emails, Weekly and monthly meeting minutes, Daily Reports • Read, read • Document Issues • Highlight what time frames are effected

Delay Analysis Best Practices Delay Analysis Summary • Summarize your Baseline Schedule • Determine your As-Built Critical Path • Choose your analysis method • Present your findings in a simplified and easy to understand manner 29

Delay Analysis Best Practices Windows Analysis (my favorite)? • Measuring delay through different periods of time “windows” • Easily see what is critical from one time period to the next • More windows are usually always better, but to a degree. Monthly updates usually preferred • If presented correctly, it is very easy to follow and hard to discredit • Windows analysis should be done using Level 2 schedules and presented as a Level 1 Summary 30

Delay Analysis Best Practices Questions to ask a Delay Expert • Why did you choose that specific analysis method? • What are the strengths, and more importantly weakness in your chosen method? • Did you look at any schedule(s)? What where your impressions on the reliability of the schedules? • What is your favorite or most used analysis method? • When is the last time you used other methods besides your favorite? • How did you link causation to the delays? • Did you follow any industry standards? • Did you look at the contract? • Do you think this analysis makes sense? 31

Delay Analysis Best Practices THANK YOU 32