Design-Build Project Schedule Development and Management - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 244

A claim for additional time must include three elements: the cause, liability, and the
effect (i.e., damages). The causes or reasons for delays need to be quantified in terms of
their magnitude and their precise location in the network. This is typically done by splic-
ing a fragnet into the operational schedule. Because all stakeholders in a project, including
third parties, can be sources of delays, it is imperative that a due and diligent process be
followed to apportion delay liability to the party with closest proximity to the delaying
event. To prove damages (i.e., the effect), it is necessary to prove that the delaying event
impacted the critical path and resulted in a time extension that is directly attributed to
such delaying event.
The remedy for critical delaying events that are beyond the control of the design-
builder is a corresponding time extension. These delays are known as excusable delays.
There are two types of excusable delays: (1) those that are under the control of the owner,
and (2) those that are beyond the control of the owner. Whereas the former entitles the
design-builder to also make a claim for monetary delay damages in addition to the time
extension, the most common remedy for the latter third-party delays is just the time
extension.
The methodologies to measure the impact of delaying events fall under two general
categories: forensic and contemporaneous. Similarly, recognizing delaying events can take
place either retrospectively or contemporaneously. The combination of measuring and
recognizing dimensions creates the possibility to (1) recognize and measure retrospec-
tively; (2) recognize contemporaneously but measure retrospectively; or (3) recognize and
measure contemporaneously.
The latter scenario is currently favored. It requires the owner and design-builder to
“live or die” by an outcome based on what is known to be the true status of the project
at the time the delaying event occurs. This is very significant because the critical path is
acknowledged to be dynamic and what was critical then may not be critical later, resulting
in an unnecessary time extension. Having done the analysis contemporaneously removes
the uncertainty typically associated with the design-builder's constructive acceleration.
Several issues often remain unsettled in the schedule impact analysis:
1. Utilization of float on a first-come, first-served basis
2. Concurrency of delaying events
3. Design-builder's right to finish early
4. Duty to mitigate the effect of delays
5. Constructive acceleration
6. Pacing productivity
7. Schedule approvals
Design-Build Considerations and Best Practices
Project delivery by DB offers numerous benefits, but perhaps the single most important
one is the synergy created by having the designer and the builder working cooperatively
together. Design for constructability takes on more meaning and significance given the
natural bidirectional flow of data, information, knowledge, and understanding about the
project between designers and builders. To maximize this benefit, physical colocation at
the design and job sites is recommended.