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Dear Experts,
I am in predicament right now. My contractor's program was approved 9 months back and I got onboard in the project recently. The contractor's schedule is showing huge delays when they submitted the impacted schedule. When I did my investigation as to why and how, the contractor link each activities to each floor. For instance, blockwork 1F to blockwork 2F up to last floor, plaster 1F to plaster 2F...and so on, and all Finishes and MEP works. I raised this issue to the contractor and he said it's because of resource allocation which when I did my investigation the resources were not leveled. I explained to the contractor and to the client that this is not a good practice since free floats are consumed immediately, total floats (negative floats) are mandatorily imposed, therefore creating artificial floats, critical path and all.
My client is afraid the contractor might call it acceleration if I asked them to revise the schedule. I told him it's not revision, it's a correction of the program.
In which part of the contract (FIDIC, we are using) can I get the support to my claim from?
Thanks again.\
Best Regards,
Artagnan
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Hi D Artangan;
I believe The Contractor done the Schedule as Procurement Strategy has been set early. This mean The Contractor with comitted contract price will only allow 1 Team for each trade. This will required The Contractor to used Hard Links.
The Contractor has prove in the beginning stage of Schedule Development, they will be able to complete the jobs on time with this procurement strategy.
Before you ask contractor to rectify the schedule (if found any mistake), you should analyse the root cause of the delay. Each delay cause will give differet impact to the project such as design/drawing unavailability will be a strong case fo contractor to claim Extension of Time. Any request to reduce the duration will cause an Accelaration Claim by The Contractor.
It's better to carry out internal analysis first before jump into conclusion that the schedule is wrong. Not all the planner use Resource Levelling. Path Control also another type of resource levelling, the contractor just need to control he path equal to available team, for example the contractor have allocate 2 teams for brickwall works, they just need to ensure only have 2 path in the schedule and only 2 brickwall activities will be carry out in same time, no need for Primavera or Microsoft Project Resource Levelling.
Thanks
When you say approval of drawings is holding things up, is this a client deliverable -ie are they saying they will finish late because of client delays, and are therefore entitled to an EOT? Have the submitted an EOT claim?
I would sit with your PM / contracts guy and draft a letter along these lines:
"Your latest submitted programme is showing siginficant delays to the contract completion.
As clause xxx of the contract refers, you are obliged to make all reasonable efforts to mitigate this delay.
We expect these efforts to include efficient utilisation and sequencing of planned resources, and ammendments to the programme logic, where such ammendments would not incur additional costs to the project.
Our analysis of your latest programme suggests significant gaps in your forecast resource allocation for the following resources:
yyyyyy
Which is driving unecessary delay to the following activities:
zzzzzzz
(analysis attached for reference)
Please reply either demonstrating why you are unable to mitigate the forecast delay, or proposing changes to the planned sequence."
Please note: I am not a contracts expert, and don't know FIDIC well enough to give sure and certain advice -this is why I suggest sitting with PM / contracts person.
Cheers,
G
Thanks for your inputs. The schedule is showing huge delays already and everything now has become critical (again becaue of the hard linking). Checking on a summary level per floor shows that gaps (which should be usuable floats, but not) 4th floor (2 weeks) then checking the level 17 (more than 2 months gaps - cannot be used as float). And they submitted this as impacted schedule. In the contract it's mentioned that "the contractor has made reasonable and proper efforts to mitigate such delay". And in my analysis, no efforts in the program was done, for one and using all these hard links and maintaining the methodology will not help mitigate the delays.
@Gary,
I believe we are on the same page regarding the "reasonable" efforts".
@Ronald,
No no. I am not rejecting it because of that. Their argument is that resource allocation but when I checked the program, it's not. I have been discussing with the contractor regarding this issue as the schedule is delayed by so much. The structural works were almost within the schedule and the schedule is, or the impacted schedule, is showing more than 100 days delay already because of approval of drawings (MEP and ID). I take what was mentioned in the contract "the contractor has made reasonable and proper efforts to mitigate such delay" . While checking the program, as mentioned above there were gaps of a 2 weeks to 2 months. If the piping is delayed by 1 week those gaps will just move and cannot be consumed (therefore, they are not usuable floats).
It's not about the execution. Using their submitted program, the contractor will have a very relax time and effort since they have more than enough resources at this moment to cope it up. Assuming all were approved today, in my assessment, they can start peaking up next month, however, in their schedule, it will take them more than 2 months to start peaking up.
I would like to ask the contractor to have an exercise by taking out mandatory links and see the result. I have done it myself but, do you think it's alright to ask them to do the same?
Thanks again.
In case of delays soley attributed to the contractor, the client has the remedy to require the contractor to submit a recovery programme and to describe the revised methods to be adopted in order to expedite progress and complete within the time for completion. The client can also, require the contractor to ensure sufficient resources to maintain progress along the critical path.
Require the contractor to submit a recovery programme, to meet the accepted baseline orignal targets, along those guidelines.
I prefer not to use the so called soft links to level my jobs but many of my clients have such preference and their work frequently flow smoothly. The problem is not in the use of these links but on understanding that resource leveling got to be managed.
Maybe because of preferential logic some of these "soft links" are no longer valid, the real issue is not in the use of soft-links but in not correcting logic when out of sequence work makes the model invalid.
To my knowledge use of soft-links or use of automatic resource leveling are both considered acceptable as good practice, what is not good practice is mixing both on the same model. Not keeping the logic valid is also considered bad practice. Remember no matter what, it is the responsibility of the contractor to fix the logic if need be, not yours.
Some specifications do require the contractor to fix all out of sequence logic, others do not but if progress is showing a out of sequence work and your contract have such specifications I would start from here. Other specifications make reference to documents that define Good Practice, this can be another source of action to consider. If this does not solve the problem then further action might be considered but make sure you understand the consequences.
Remember schedule updates do not necessarily mean acceptance of changed contract conditions while contractual baselines do. Maybe you shall make it clear that acceptance of schedule updates do not represent changes in contractual conditions but a statement on the project status and the actual plan of the contractor on which from time to time he shall make adjustments to keep within contractual conditions.
When you say the contractor's programme is showing huge delays, do you mean they are currently forecasting that they will fail to complete by the contract date?
If so, the contractor is obliged to make all "reasonable efforts" (ie do everything that will not cost them more money) to recover the delay.
I don't have a copy of FIDIC to hand and it's been a while since I used it, so I can't point you to the relevant clause and the terminology "reasonable efforts" may be wrong (it may be "best endeavours", for example), but I am sure such a clause exists.
Efficient utilisation of resources is a classic example of a "reasonable effort" which the contractor should make in this situation.
If the contractor is not currently forecasting a delay, then your options are limited to suggesting a more efficient work sequence that would presumably save them time and money.
Either way, you have no contractual right to plan their work for them, even if you think you could do a better job.
Artagnan,
I hope that you are not saying that you want to reject the schedule because the Contractor is not showing an efficient resource plan. That would be a very weak position to take unless your contract requires ‘efficient’ resource plans. Does your contract even mention resource planning? Do not forget that you are applying the contract, not what you learned in school. Many projects are scheduled smoothly without even using recources.
Unless you believe that it will be impossible for the Contractor to perform the contracted work, using the specified resources, in the contracted time, then you cannot correctly reject the schedule because of resource-constrained logic ties (often called ‘soft logic’, not hard-linking.) I recommend giving the Contractor your best advice but not take any extreme measures mentioned here.
If you believe that the schedule will be impossible to execute according to the contract, then you had better be able to prove it. Good luck!
Dear Mike,
Previously I had the same notion and I gave the benefit of the doubt but their resources are not limited to what the program is saying. There are huge gaps in each floors (one month and some are two months) showing idle manpower. I would like to ask the contractor to make an exercise of what I think is right by releasing these mandatory links and check the resource allocation. In my opinion, if they had done it like this then they never bothered to render resource allocation analysis. That is not proper, imo.
I still need your opinion. Thanks again for your assistance.
Artagnan
Hi D Artangan
What the contractor has done is perfectly correct if he is only deploying one gang for each trade on the project.
When the resources are governed by "hard" links then resource levelling will not work.
If the programme is being held back by constraints then remove them and see where the end date lands.
You can then go back to the contractor and tell him that his plan will not meet the end date with his current resource levels.
He may have to supply two gangs and leapfrog floors.
Best Regards
Mike Testro
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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