A construction project schedule activity typically has information depicted below.
Situation:
Understanding the various construction project schedule reports.
The ability to extract useful data from a construction project schedule relies on the quality of the schedule design, the accuracy of schedule updates, and the skill to read and interpret the various reports generated from the construction project schedule.
Problem Statement
The challenge is knowing what type of report to look for, especially knowing that a well-designed and accurately updated construction project schedule contains a wealth of information.
Best Practice
The schedule aims to communicate and provide information to the end users. To fulfill this objective, the following questions must be answered:
- Who will utilize the information from the schedule?
- Owner Engineers and Representatives
- Contractor’s Foreman, Engineers, and Representatives
- Subcontractors’ Engineers and Representatives
- Claims, Dispute Resolution Experts
- Construction Material and Product Suppliers
- Lawyers
- What do they need to know about the schedule?
- The what, when, where, who, how, how much, and why
- Basis for the work breakdown structure
- Activities added to the schedule
- Basis for impact activities included in the schedule
- Basis for resource allocation in the schedule
- Basis for performance metrics
- Basis for the responsible party linked to an activity
- Basis for activity duration
- Basis for calendar types and their assignment to an activity
- Basis for a relationship associated with an activity
- Basis for coding tags assigned to an activity
Based on the answers to these questions, the schedule should be designed to provide the appropriate information to the right people at the right time. Conducting a schedule analysis and generating useful reports requires that accurate information be captured and input into the schedule. When reviewing the project schedule, the focus may vary depending on who is reviewing it and what information they seek.
Schedule Performance and Variance Analysis
- Activity duration analysis – Planned duration, actual duration, variance percentage
- A report to show planned duration vs. actuals for a specific discipline, an item of work, the area of work, etc.
- Report on activity with extended duration and reference to events that explain what happened.
- A report on a specific subcontractor’s progress and schedule performance showing overall baseline duration vs. actual duration, and baseline duration for each individual activity vs. actual duration/time it took to complete each individual activity
- A report to compare the contract schedule to the in-house schedule based on the remaining duration to complete each component of the project
- A written (not graphical) report on common schedule review comments by Owners on baseline, update, revision, and TIA schedules
Delay Analysis & Critical Path Method (CPM) Evaluation
- A report to show all impact activities encountered at a particular segment of the project
- A report to support time impact by showing that the affected activity was critical to job progress or on the critical path
- A report of the critical path showing how delay fragnets extend the time on the critical path
- A report of the critical path showing how acceleration fragnets shorten the time on the critical path
- A report showing concurrent delays, excusable delays, non-excusable delays, compensable delays, and non-compensable delays
- A report showing impacts and their effect on the schedule
- A report showing the impacts of out-of-sequence work
- A report to show the float depletion timeline at a particular segment of the project
Acceleration, Compression, and Time-Cost Tradeoffs
- A report to show 1) voluntary, 2) constructive, or 3) directed acceleration
- A report showing manpower utilization, planned vs. actual, showing overtime and multiple shifts
- Report on time cost trade-offs for optimized crashing and compressing activities on the critical path
Resource Management and Histograms
- A project staffing histogram and curve
- A report showing resource projection
- A report of estimated and actual man-hour histograms and cumulative curves
- A report showing total man-hours attributed to change order work as compared to original contract work
Cost, Productivity, and Earned Value Analysis
- Earned value analysis report for performance evaluation
- A report showing an increase in time-related costs
- A report showing an escalation in labor costs
- A report showing an escalation in material costs
- A report showing low productivity/increased labor cost
- A report showing additional supervision
- Time and resource report for “Measured Mile” analysis
Discipline or Scope-Specific Reporting
- A report to show work to be completed by a specific type of work – earthwork, flatwork, structures, mechanical, electrical, etc.
- A report showing actual dates for delivery of major equipment and materials
Case In Point
Considering the different aspects of the schedule and the numerous reports that arise from these aspects, it is important for planning and scheduling professionals to understand these reports and make necessary provisions for them. For example, one of the reports that is always requested is one that seeks to determine if a superintendent is meeting his/her duration and production targets. To answer this question accurately, the schedule should include data based on the original duration of each activity, the crew size assigned to each task, the man-hours allocated, and the estimated cost of each activity. Additionally, the schedule should capture data on actual duration, disruptions, instances of suspension and resumption, actual crew size, actual man-hours, and costs. While conducting a duration variance analysis may seem straightforward, it is important to recognize that the elapsed time of an activity may encompass non-work periods resulting from various project issues that are not necessarily due to crew inefficiency.
