SUBMITTALS & APPROVALS

Rami,



It deppends on the contract.



We are doing a Federal Government job that requires scheduling two submittal runs under separate activities as if to assume Government will reject first submittal. Our experience with private owners is they accept usually at first run, at time “as noted”, our experience with federal jobs is they overdo it and always reject first submission.



Contrary to industry average, the Feds acknowledge they are very picky.



Best Regards,

Rafael

Rafel,



The 50% Mervilyne is talking about is here allowance for a second review which seems to be the practice many people around here following;



Example: Act 1: Prepare & Submit Design (10 days)

Act 2: Review & Approval of Design (14 days)

Act 1 is FF to Act 2



This seems to be the most common model and the one that you have used except you have also Delivery which is correct in case of material procurement.



the Example Activities represent One Turnaround cycle and it would probably be directly linked to the starting activity. the fact that it represents one turnaround cycle is the source of all evil; and it is what makes Mervilyne update it as 50% since she rightfully expects that the engineer will not approve the first submission, a second revision might be needed but what if a 3rd is required!



I don’t approve this method though. The alternative is to build in a 2nd and maybe 3rd submittal/review cycle. However, such practice might be fine for internal planning but not for a plan that is to be submitted and approved by a client/engineer as it would be considered as a prior acknowledgement of the contractor that they are not going to do their engineering right and they will have to do it over again.



I agree with you and mike that the engineering activities should be in a cascade of activities not milestones. I agree with mike that they will have to be constrained (As Late As Possible) and properly linked to the construction/installation activities.



Still, I would build in a risk allowance by adding a "RESERVE" lag between the approval and start of the activity equal to at least 2 additional submittal/approval turnaround cycles. This lag would have to be adjusted on each update by an amount equal to the update intervals (progressive erosion).



As for updating, I’d probably not use the 50% rule Mervilyne is using, and rather keep the activity without actual until it is approved.



Not perfect, but it

1> allows for reasonably planing when you need to start working on your submittal

2> saves you from getting into awkward contractual situation by showing more than one revision for same submittal and

3> follows acceptable planning standards (compromise: Lag & continually monitoring it) but saves you from using irrational percentages!



Regards,

Rami

Mervilyne,







You can use formulas to verify your duration for submittal evaluation activities. With formulas, you can verify initial activity duration as well as actual duration. Initial activity duration shall be equal to contractual allowance while actual shall be equal or less.



As you can see, updating for submittal evaluation activities shall be on contractual allowance unless activity is over the limit. If activity is over the limit then you shall create the “extended evaluation” activity and update this activity with a nominal remaining duration of one day (or a fraction) as you do not know this value, guessing a 50% value as remaining duration can be misleading, what if take less, let the owner know you count on it being returned ASAP and have no idea on when will be returned, that he is disrrupting your plans and you do not know until when.



http://www.planningplanet.com/forum/forum_post.asp?fid=1&Cat=5&Top=75772



“The schedule that is used for workforce management shall be tight. Adding risk allowance for activity estimates is an error.”



How are you to manage a schedule that will delay activity start based on a 50% remaining duration that might be too much? If the allowed review time were already depleted, I would expect remaining duration to be less than 50% unless the reviewer is grossly negligent.



Your question is so good that in the future I will adopt the proposed updating procedure I overlooked before, thanks for the challenge.



Best Regards,

Rafael

Hi Mervilyne,



If you’re using the 50%/100%, how you’re going to identify in the schedule for resubmittals?



First submission doesn’t mean that you have completed 50% of the job.



Best regards,



R. Catalan

Hi Mervilyne



Then change your milestones to a suitable cascade of tasks for design and procurement - similar to Rafael’s example but in greater detail.



These should be in a seperate sub chart and linked to the task in the programme ALAP.



If you have multiple tasks for the same design and procurement route and you don’t know which will be the first to start then filter on the tasks and add them to a hammock task.



Link the procurement to the start of the hammock and the design and procurement will follow the earliest start.



In PowerProject you cannot link to the start of a hammock so put the hammock under a summary bar and link to that.



Best regards



Mike Testro.

Remaining duration will be as per due date, if it does not happens then I would keep the duration for the Evaluation Period up to the maximum as per contract conditions and record actual start of period and actual finish of contractual period even if submittal was not returned on time (see figure above), then I would insert an Extended Evaluation activity starting from due date of review period and finishing on actual returned date or with a nominal remaining duration of 1 day as not to report the activity as finished. In the schedule update narrative I would comment on the extended review activities as to keep the owner informed I have no idea when it will be finished as it is not under my control.



This activity might be needed for a TIA to be performed on appropriate time, if it delays the job, and will be on record for the case when even if not delaying the job many such occurrences do represent a disruption against you will be able to claim.



Keep it available on record always, do not let the Owner claim he did not know about the delay and therefore you waived your right to claim.



Best Regards,

Rafael

Hi Mervilyne.



Are you working on Milestones?



Best regards



Mike Testro