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Supplier masking Schedule performance and delays during Covid-19 window and Rebaselining in P6 in a COVID Period

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UK Planning Engineer
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Hi All (and especially Zoltan! Thanks for your help in the past!) We were going through a schedule rebaseline with the customer and also including suppliers who were delivering late to key milestones and then COVID-19 hit. We are still progressing with the tebasine of the the program but we have been informed that we cannot re-forecast our own resource due to us working (or attempting to work!) at BAU and until there is further central and government guidance which will affect how the organisation carries on in the future of a COVID world. However, in rebaseling our suppliers, who were already late, are also now claiming delays due to COVID and these are being requested to be included in the Re-Planning. This is made difficult in that we were in the process of re-baselining the program when the Covid lockdown already occurred here in the UK and as we suspect, their delays and new dates will likely be inclusive and using the lockdown as a smokescreen for poor performance and schedule slippage. Due to contractual wranglings, we don’t have the Level 1, ground level, contractor schedule detailing work rate and working hours only ROC and start and completion dates against Work packages where we have assigned budgetary value. What would you suggest We do in this situation? Is there a way to differentiate between Covid and performance delay in this time period and through this available supplier data to enable us to track, incorporate, interrogate and then integrate and forecast where they are slipping? How would you Mark this up (project code for Covid affected activities? A Covid and non Covid baseline?) in P6 - any P6 and scheduler related recommendations surrounding scheduling in a time of shutdowns, lockdowns, turnarounds, reduced hours and remote working!? Interested to know how other Schedulers would deal with this situation and how they are reflecting these COVID slips and Delays in their schedule? Thank you very much again for helping me out everyone :)

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Zoltan Palffy
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I am not sure if you have read any of my commenst but with ANY delay covid19 or ANY delay, The 1st thing that you is is update the schedule to see where you were prior to the delay. This gives you a starting to point when the delay is over and becomes the basis for deteremining who is respobsible for any delay and what the magnitude of the dlay is. 

Lets say that a supplier was -20 days behind sechedule prior to a dealy then he is responsible to recover this lost time. This can not be swept under the covid19 umbrella delay. They owe you this time. The trouble arises when trying to assess the delay due to covid19. There are several issue associated with this one is lack of manpower duiring the covid19 delay and you must incorporate startup time whne re-starting due to the covid delay. You just dont turn a switch after the delay and you are running at full capacity it does not work like that. So now you have to determine fact from fiction and sweed out the fluff that someone may be trying to take advantage due to another delay. 

The other thing to consider is production scheduling were was your orider in line originally were you next for production and now due to covid19 you got bumped to the back of the line becasue your project was put on hold and others were not.

Or did they have to re-toll to make mandated PPE or ventilators and example of is the car manufactuing industry totalt re-tooling.

They are now making cars agaisn but foe awhile they were not. 

The other thing to look at is the availablilty of the raw materla that feeds the suppliers and manufatures to make things. Although the manufactures were not shut down but THEIR suppliers of the raw material necessary for THEIR production could not be performed. Its the ripple effect. 

Dissect and look at each piece individually then look at them toghetr as a whole to try to determine where you are and wha the they was or will be. 

If you can create a seperate covid19 calendar (blocking out non workdays due to the covid19 virus) and assign those activities that were delayed during the pandemic to that calendar. 

hope this helps 

Rafael Davila
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Construction Contracts & COVID-19: Delays, Force Majeure & More

I am an advocate of updating baseline whenever it makes sense.  With the understanding a contractual baseline has legal implications, a lot covid contractual baselines to be continuously updated makes no sense at all.  Schedule updates are different, are not legally binding, leave the legal stuff for later.

I suggest using schedules updates that should reflect current changes in planning as a reference to compare progress against continuously changed conditions.  Allowable manpower will be reduced.  Crew composition will change.  Crew production rates will change.  As a result activity durations might be impacted.  Supply chain will be impacted.  Additional work shifts might be needed as to compensate for the reduced crews.  Changes in logic might be required.

Perhaps the update frequency should be shortened, communication of revised schedules should be fast, there are no shortcuts.

EVM got covid-19 and should be quarantined, it looks like the schedule will require a ventilator for a long time.