Ihab Saad – Schedule Updating
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the process of updating and maintaining a schedule, identifying the cause of deviation from the baseline and addressing mistakes to avoid them in the future. They also discuss the importance of proper actions to prevent future mistakes and the need for continuous monitoring and updating the schedule. The process of planning and executing a project is discussed, including monitoring performance, updating objectives, and tracking progress. The weight of completed activities is measured, and progress is measured by the actual date and the weight of completed activities is various percentages. The sub strengthen completion percentage is calculated, and the payment request is reviewed and resubmitted.
AI: Summary ©
Hello again, in new in a new lecture of construction
scheduling, and today we're going to start talking about schedule
updating. As you remember, when we discussed the time management
steps, we mentioned six steps. The first one was activity definition,
the second one was activity sequencing, followed by resource
estimating and duration estimating, and then we have
scheduled development, and finally, scheduled control. So
far, we have talked about maybe five of these steps, which ended
up with schedule development, where we have managed to develop a
schedule, calculate the early start, early finish, late start
and late finish, total float and free float for different
activities. And now that we have a schedule, we have to put it to
work, and we have to see whether it's feasible or not, and we have
to maintain and update the schedule, as we have already
mentioned in class. We have while developing the schedule, we have
to develop a schedule maintenance for management plan. This schedule
management plan basically says, how often are we going to update
the schedule? How are we going to update the schedule? In some
cases, this is mandated by the contract where the contractor has
to submit, at the end of each month with the progress report, an
updated schedule reflecting the current status of the project. And
in some cases, the contractor would take that initiative on his
or her own, because they want to make sure that the schedule that
they have developed is feasible and practical at the same time,
and they want to know at each point in time, at any point in
time, where are they compared to their baseline or their
established approved schedule. So the topic today that we're going
to talk about is how to update the schedule and keep it in a proper
shape.
So schedule development serves two major tasks. The first one is
planning and control. So we want to know what are we going to do,
and then while we are performing the project, we want to know
whether we are doing it as planned or not. So that's the planning and
control aspects of schedule development in time planning
schedule is developed to establish a baseline or benchmark to be
monitored and controlled during the project execution. This is
what we're going to call the baseline schedule, which is going
to be an approved document. Once it's approved by the owner, it
becomes sort of a contractual document that the contractor and
the owner are going to be bound to so in project control, the actual
performance is compared to the baseline. And once we make that
comparison, which is what we call control monitoring and control,
we're going to monitor the progress. And then in case of any
deviation from the plan or the baseline, we need to know how much
is that deviation. Why did it happen? We have to analyze the
root cause and find out solutions and try to make sure that the
problems that occurred in the past do not keep perpetuating and
repeating it themselves in the future. So the scheduler compares
the actual performance with the baseline performance to discern
any deviation, not just for preparation and presentation to
the owner before commencement of the work, and not just as a
satisfaction of contractual requirements, but primarily to
keep the project under control and maintain its major milestones, to
make sure the project is not slipping gradually.
So in case of deviation from the baseline, and this is almost
always going to happen. I have personally not seen any project
finishing exactly as planned. There's always going to be some
fine tuning to that plan. There's going to be some deviation from
the plan, whether it's based on uncontrollable conditions, which
is what we called in class force majeure, or something beyond the
control of all the contractual parties, or it might be due to
some mistake or fault, due to action or inaction by any of the
contractual parties, whether it's the owner, the contractor or the
Arctic engineer, the construction manager, subcontractors and so on
and so forth. It could be unexpected soil conditions, it
could be inclement weather. It could be Equipment Breakdown, so
many different factors that can lead to deviation from the
baseline schedule. So the manager, the project manager, needs to know
where is the deviation in which activity or which set of
activities, what's the cause of that deviation, whether it's the
schedule initially was defective in its initial assessment, or the
performance did not match the expected production rates. For
example, what is the magnitude of the deviation? Again, if we're
talking about a three year project and we have a deviation of three
days, no big deal. We kind of covered that very easily. But if
we're talking about a project with a six month duration and we have
three weeks of delay, this is really considerable.
So once we analyze the deviation and we know its magnitude, what's
the required corrective action to be taken? How can we correct that
mistake? Is it through filing a claim for time extension, for
example? Is it through acceleration of work, working
another shift or using bigger equipment, using additional
resources?
So what kind of preventive action should be taken to avoid
repetition of the causes of that deviation, just to make sure that
we do not repeat the same mistakes? And what is the end
forecast, if we keep progressing at the same pace, are we going to
be able to finish on time? If it's a non critical activity, are we
within our float so it does not affect the schedule? If we are in
a critical activity, then definitely it's going to affect
the schedule, and most importantly, which is what you can
carry from one project to another, is what are the lessons learned?
So this is this graph shows basically a the project control
cycle, where we start planning, we develop the project objectives, we
implement the project and keep monitoring the performance, and
then we measure the progress on a scheduled frequent basis, and then
we find what the root cause is of any deviation, if any. And then we
implement the controls, whether it's corrective action or
preventive action. And then we update the project objectives, and
then we keep repeat the same cycle again. We do that on a weekly
basis, bi monthly basis, monthly basis. We need to keep doing that
as long as the project is progressing.
Control means not only monitoring, so monitoring is observing and
measuring, but what is the result of that monitoring and observing?
It's the the decision that we're going to make. So track. It's
taking the corrective measures whenever and wherever necessary to
control is to compare. So we have to have a baseline or a benchmark
to compare to. We have to have a fixed target, and then we have to
have to have a moving object, which is the schedule under
progress, we have to compare that moving object to the to the fixed
target to know exactly how are we performing.
So the baseline is also known as the target schedule, as we just
mentioned, and it may be different with as planned schedule. So we
keep updating that basically due to contractual changes, for
example, that have
shown after we have signed the contract and things like that.
It's going to be prepared by the general contractor, usually to
incorporate all the sub schedule develop schedules developed by the
subcontractors and suppliers. And it has to be developed before the
start of the project, because, as we mentioned in most of the cases,
this is going to be a contractual document that everyone is going to
be using in the future. It's going to be used for performance
comparison, and if approved by the owner, it becomes a part of the
contract documents.
The updated schedule is the schedule reflecting the actual
performance information. So this is not the target schedule
anymore. Now we're moving. We're talking about the moving object
that that vehicle that's moving along, the project completion. It
includes the time of occurrence of different activities, amount or
percentage of work completed, what we call the PCT, and changes to
future work. So as a definition, a revised schedule reflecting the
project information at a given data date we're gone. That's the
data date, the measuring date where we're gonna measure our
performance and decide how we're doing regarding completed
activities in progress, activities and changes in the logic, cost and
resources required and allocated at any activity level, it reflects
the actual start and finish dates for activities as well as the
percentage of completion PCT. So these are at least three pieces of
information that we need to collect during the monitoring
process. For the activities that have started, what was their
actual start? If the activity is complete, what was the actual
finish for that activity? And if the activity has started, but it's
still in progress. It's not complete yet. What is the percent
complete, or the percentage of completion of that activity? And
we're going to see different ways of measuring that percentage of
completion.
So the data date is also known as the as of date schedule, date
status, date, update, date. All of these are the same things talking
about the same concept, which is the date as of which all progress
on the project is reported. It is not the current date or the time
now, because, for example, today might be March 10 or March 9, but
I based my schedule on an update on or a cutoff date on March 5,
for example.
So some of the required information that we need to
collect are the actual start, which denotes the actual start
date of the activity obtained from the construction site or from the
key performer of the activity. If it's done in a shop by
subcontractor or supplier, they are going to provide that provide
us with that actual start, and the actual finish denotes the date by
which the activity is considered to be complete, whether it's
substantial completion or practical completion. This is
something to discuss a little bit later, PCT or percent complete,
which applies to activities that have an actual start. If it has
not started yet, then the Percent Complete is zero. If the.
It 100%
if it is not complete, it is 0% so if it has not started, 0% started
but not yet finished. Either I give it an arbitrary amount or
start just give it zero or wait until it's complete. And then in
this case, I'm going to count it as 100% and this can be very
useful only for very short activities with a very short
duration.
Another elaboration on the all or nothing is the incremental
milestones. If I have, for example, a large slab on grade,
and in that slab on grade, I have
some underground pipes and cables, and I have rebar, and I have
concrete and so on, and I have curing of that concrete. So if the
rebar is 50% complete, am I going to consider it zero and wait until
it's 100% to call, to call, to count it as 100%
that would be relatively unfair, because this might be a long
activity with a long duration. So it's used for activities that
contain a set of tasks or stages. I can say, for example, that once
the four more for that slab on grade is done, this is, let's say,
10%
once the underground utilities are done. This is 50% once the rebar
is done. That's another 30% so it's a total of 90% or 80% and
then once I have placed the concrete, that's another 10% and
once I cure the concrete and I remove the forms, then this is the
remaining amount, and that way I can measure the progress of that
activity based on which subtasks have been completed. So each stage
of a given activities assigned a weight that's approximately equal
to its percentage share in the effort in the total activity. Then
each stage is treated as all or nothing. So if the rebar is not
complete, I'm not I'm going to give it a zero. If it's complete,
I'm going to give it all of the 40% which is the weight of that
rebar and so on.
So here is an example of incremental milestones a
contractor is installing. 25 doors. Four doors have not yet
been started, so percent complete is 08.
Doors had their frames erected, and we consider that the frame
erection for each door is 30% of the work.
Six doors have been hung. We consider hanging the doors is 50%
of the work. Four doors after being hung have been painted, so
we consider that as 70% 75% of the work. And then the last three
doors had all of the previous steps completed, plus the hardware
also installed, which is remaining 25% so now these three doors are
100% complete. Now, if I want to know what's the total progress of
that activity, of hanging these and installing these 25 doors,
here's the example. So for the activity not yet started, four
times zero is zero. We can consider that the total weight is
25 which is 25 doors times 100 points for each door. So a total
is 2500 points. So for the doors that have not been installed, it's
four times zero. So it's zero. For the doors that have been
erected or manufactured, it's eight doors, and that's 30%
so eight times 30, times 30, that's going to give us 9.6%
or eight times 30, which, which is 240 points, compared to the 2500
points. That's 9.6% the doors that have been already hung
six doors. So again, six times 50 because that's 50%
so that's a total of 300 points divided by 2500 that's another 12%
the doors that have been painted four doors times 75%
which is 75 points. So 300 points divided by 2500 that's another 12%
and finally, three doors have been completed. And these are 300
points, because it's 100% for these three doors. So 300 divided
by 2500 that's another 12% so when we add that total, it gives us a
percentage of completion for that activity of installing the 25
doors of 45.6%
method number five is supervisors opinion, and that's sort of
subjective, because the supervisors or the superintendents
might have different opinions on the progress of the activity. They
might think that the hard part has already passed and what's left is
quite easy work, so they might give a higher percentage of
completion. No other method can be suited, it's going to be used if
no other method can be suited, suitably applied only in this
case, and it relies totally on the foreman or superintendent's
judgment. So it's most convenient, because it's easy to obtain, but
it might be the least accurate because it's, again, a subjective,
uh.
By the fifth day of the month, the general contractor is going to
list all the activities that had that had work done on them since
the previous period. We're going to say this month we have worked
on 12345,
and this is the these are the actual dates, and these are the
percentage of completion for each activity that's going to include
the actual start, actual finished, percent complete and original
budget, cost to this of this period, cost to date and cost to
complete what's the left, the remaining cost to complete that
activity, and the general contractor and the subcontractor
have to concur on percent complete. So again, if you have a
subcontractor that submitted this information to you, you have to
agree with the subcontractor. So only 1% complete is going to be
submitted, and it's usually going to be on the conservative side. So
if the subcontractor says it's 75% and you, as a GC, say, No, it's
only 70% what you're going to submit is the 70% not the 75 the
report is going to be reviewed and verified by the owner or the
owner's representative, the Arctic engineer, for example, or the
construction manager for the owner. And they're going to check
the completed quantity. They're going to ensure that these
quantities have been completed properly according to the specs
and they've been accepted. They're going to review the unit prices as
per the bid price, and the totals are going to be calculated in the
payment request. The payment request can be approved as is, if
there's no disagreement between the client and the contractor, or
approved with some numbers this approved. So we're gonna hold on
on these numbers. We're not we're going to investigate them a little
more, but in order not to delay the whole payment, we're going to
set them aside and give you the release for the approved amount,
or totally rejected and sent for resubmit if there are some
erroneous quantities or erroneous calculations or disagreement on
conceptual issues in that payment, it might be returned to the
contractor for review and resubmittal, and the schedule of
values must be updated with the cost of any change orders to
reflect that the new unit price Is is this and not the old one in the
bit?
And basically, this is the end of this lecture talking about
schedule updating. I hope now, by now, you know what scheduled
updating means and how it's going to be used to maintain the project
schedule. Thank you and see you in the next lecture. Bye, bye.