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CE's on NEC3

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Oliver Melling
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I have 3 CE's on a project that have been accepted by the PM as having an effect on the price and consequently increased the target price,but they were never impacted on the accepted schedule at the time of being agreed. Errors in the previously accepted programme have now been rectified and the newly accepted schedule now puts tasks associated with one of the CE's on the critical path. To assess its impact on the LD date and any key dates, is it acceptable to do the analysis on the newly accepted programme? Or does it need to be in-line with the contract against the last accepted programme prior to the CE being raised?

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Oliver Melling
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I'm not sure i understand the question but this is what we did...

I agree the accepted programme is a realistic version of events to come and 'should' include all accepted CEs. There is only one accepted programme at any one time, but superceded ones are relevant if the EoT is being done retrospectively.

My understanding is that as CEs are not always dealt with in-line with the contract deadlines, even on NEC3, it is neceassary to retrospectively complete the EoT against the accepted programme at the time the compensation event impacted. In the end i think we altered the old accepted programme to reflect a more realistic version of events with a bit of hind-sight thrown in.

The fragnets for completion of the work packages associated with the compensation events were present in our 'live' schedule and were transplanted into the tweaked version of the old accepted programme, then linked to the relevant activities. This was done in chronological order of impact to give the impact of each CE on planned completion.

It wasnt as clean-cut as it sounds though because agreeing the point of impact wasn't straight forward. Also, the logic for work 12 months into the future that has been accepted by the client in previous plans isnt always correct as the rolling wave approach has been applied.

Mutual trust and co-operation is the moto i believe, so in reality it was a case of building a story and trying to underpin it with facts to get a realistic extension.

One that both parties are happy with.

Ross Humphrey
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Oliver, how did the Project Manager assess and implement a compensation events time impact with an assessment upon the accepted programme.


The accepted programme should include all implemented CEs so it is therefore implied in the contract that the programme be updated for progress and resubmitted.

Oliver Melling
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Thanks for the input Gents,

Luckily it has been decided to slightly alter the installation sequence on site so the work is no longer on the critical path and consequently will have no time impact upon completion or key milestones.

The client on this project is pragmatic and is all for accepting CE's that are underpinned. Interesting that when you are forecasting full LD's how the client almost promotes getting the programme accepted and CE's approved. I guess they need to re-incentivise in some way.

Mike Testro
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Hi Gary

I can't argue with any of that - but in one extreme case when neither side bothered too much about the programme until it was too late - I argued the case of "Mutual Abandonement" of the Contract Clause.

The jury is still out on the validity of the concept because the parties settled.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Gary Whitehead
User offline. Last seen 5 years 24 weeks ago. Offline

I would try and get agreement with the client to correct the errors on the last accepted programme prior to the CE being implemented, then apply the CEs to that corrected programme to determine revised key/completion dates.

 

If the client wants to be difficult though, he's got a strong case for doing so. -Contractor responsibility to advise programme impact of any CEs prior to implementation, to reflect impacted CEs (and arguably CEs which are likely to be impacted in the future) on each programme for acceptance, and also obviously errors in the programme are contractor responsibility.

 

NEC relies on both parties working together with a common sense attitude to implement the spririt of the contract. Hopefully your client agrees.

Even if he does though, ther's always a risk he will argue if he'd known about the impact on dates of the CEs at the time, he wouldn't have implemented them.

 

Lesson to us all: Programme is paramount in NEC!

 

Good luck,

 

G