Ihab Saad – Schedule Updating

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.