Construction Delays and Other Claims - Construction Project Scheduling and Control - page 352

Contractors cannot get relief by complaining of unrealistic duration or logic
in the schedule later during construction, unless a change in work circum-
stances warrants such relief.
6. Schedules with logic errors : Errors may render a schedule useless and cause it
to be thrown out by the court in the case of a dispute. 15 A schedule must be
prepared by a construction professional. Contractors who don't have schedul-
ing capability usually hire CPM consultants. It is important to note that the
reliability and correctness of the schedule may have nothing to do with the
contractor's field practice. The contractor may deviate from the schedule or
planned sequence (network logic), but the schedule is still evaluated based
on its own merit.
Another problem can arise with creating many hubs 16 in a schedule.
A hub has a greater likelihood of causing a delay than other normal activities.
7. Skipping periodic updates : A contractor may be tempted not to update the
schedule on a regular basis because “things are going just fine.” In many
cases, we find only a baseline schedule and an updated schedule that reflect
work progress 6 months after the start of construction. This leaves a large
gap in between the two schedules and makes it difficult to trace back events
during that period of time. Courts may not accept schedules to prove delays
unless they are regularly updated. 17
8. Lack of proper documentation : This can have serious repercussions. When
updating a schedule, the scheduler should record any unusual events. For
example, an excavation activity finished 1 week after its scheduled finish date.
The scheduler should record the reason for this delay. Most scheduling pro-
grams provide “notes” or “log” functions at both the activity and the project
levels.
9. Lack of reasonable time contingency : Contractors must have a reasonable
amount of time contingency built into the schedule for delays such as
expected weather conditions. One of the commonly overlooked scenarios is
the possibility of rejection of submittals. A contractor may allocate 10 days
for the review and approval of shop drawings on a tight schedule. If the
drawings are rejected, the drawings have to be corrected and resubmitted
for approval. This will likely cause the process to take more than 10 days and
may cause a delay in the schedule. In most cases like this, the contractor has
to absorb this delay with no relief from the owner.
10. No allocation of the “pacing” or limited resources : There has never been a
project that has had unlimited resources. Hence, a schedule based on CPM's
15 Fortec Constructors v. United States, 8 Cl. Ct. 490 (1985).
16 A hub is an activity or milestone that is a successor and/or predecessor to many activities. The concept of
hubs was discussed in Chapter 4.
17 Wilner v. United States , 26 Cl. Ct. 260 (1992).