Time management is vital for all participants in the construction process, as well as lenders, owners, architects, contractors, and subcontractors. Construction is a multifaceted process, involving various activities and participants throughout the whole undertaking. The obligatory tasks, as well as the responsibilities of the owner, architects, contractors, and subcontractors, may be planned in many different ways to deliver the preferred result.
Saving Time and Money
Professional management and administration of the contract time and change provisions is important to steer clear of and minimizing time and cost overruns. To make the most of the chances of success, it’s important for participants to have a vital understanding of:
- Delays and how they arise.
- Essential concepts of schedule and delay analysis methodology.
- Critical path scheduling techniques, the accompanying scheduling specifications, and the software used.
- Pros and cons of several schedule and delay methods used by construction project participants.
Key factors impacting successful project delivery include: construction brokering by the contractor, errors and omissions, inadequate time extensions, and varying site conditions. There is also the risk of ambiguity and misunderstandings in terms of what is considered a suitable standard of proof for acceptable delays.
Justifying a Delay
Every time a delay occurs, timely attention and appropriate action on the part of the owner or construction manager is necessary. It’s imperative to spot the responsible party swiftly, developing and executing a remedial plan of action. To do so, it’s essential to have an effectual method of investigation for preparing a well-timed assessment of changes and delays, making it possible to devise a clear, brief, persuasive position on each of them.
Establishing the Needed Procedures
- Create contract provisions and project procedures to establish a clear expectation of the requirements for planning, producing, and managing the project.
- Establish a claims avoidance and mitigation system to assist in the resolution of possible disputes – particularly those involving schedule and cost overruns. An intelligent claims avoidance and mitigation program involves:
- Reviewing contract documents to find potential risk areas and determining how they can be managed and resolved, ensuring that crucial claims avoidance provisions and procedures are included in the contract documents.
- Training staff on recognized procedures and the areas in which claims are prone to arise, establishing early warning systems, developing a consistent response to potential claims, and recommending techniques to avoid, identify, analyze, mitigate, and resolve claims.
- Occasionally determining the efficacy of the avoidance and dispute resolution process through a claims surveillance program.
- Informing management and the project team via a periodic reporting system, guaranteeing that everyone is in agreement with the plans, actions, timeline, and results being produced.
- Periodic management briefings to tackle the most critical issues on a by-exception basis.
- Acquaintance with the advantages and disadvantages of the project delivery system used, as well as the obligations, roles, and responsibilities accepted or rejected by the involved parties.
- Create awareness of key contract provisions that could cause discrepancy, delays, and cost overruns.
- Create and uphold a contemporaneous summary entitlement analysis.
