The construction process is a complex undertaking. It involves many different activities and participants from initial planning through execution. The requisite tasks, and the roles and responsibilities of the owner, architect engineers, construction managers, contractors, and subcontractors can be organized in a number of different ways to deliver a construction project. Despite these many options, building a major construction project today without experiencing schedule delays and cost overruns is often the exception. While there are many factors that can contribute to these poor results, there are two key success factors: effectively managing time and change.
The Importance of Time
Time, with its associated costs, are vitally important for each participant in the construction process including the lender, owner, architect engineers, contractor, and subcontractors, as well as those who provide bonding and insurance coverage. Effective management and the administration of the contract time and change provisions are central to the avoidance and mitigation extended time and cost overruns. To enhance the odds of a successful project outcome, it is essential for participants in the construction process to have a basic understanding of:
- Critical path scheduling techniques, the associated scheduling specifications, and the software involved.
- Delay and how it occurs.
- The pros and cons of various schedule and delay methodologies being used by project participants and experts.
- The foundational principles for any successful schedule and delay analysis methodology.
Managing the time factor can be expensive, fraught with pressures, and subject to much uncertainty. Key factors having an influence on successful project delivery include the use of overly complex scheduling specifications, construction brokering by the contractor, errors and omissions, differing site conditions, user changes, and inadequate time extensions. These can be compounded by reservation of rights for delay, cumulative impacts, and ignoring possible completion date waivers. Further, there is still uncertainty and misunderstanding that remains in terms of what constitutes acceptable standards of proof for excusable delay and impacts. While computers and scheduling software have greatly increased the potential for enhanced scheduling capabilities, they have also contributed to a variety of user quality problems. The situation is often compounded by failure of both the Owner and Contractor to recognize from the start the need for timely resolution of delays and keeping the schedule up to date by reflecting actual performance and delays as they occur.
