when there are delays on a construction project and a delay claim has been issued, it’s vital to determine who caused the delays and what happens next.
forensic delay schedule analysis is broad area of expertise in project controls whereby a set of techniques are used to analyze a schedule and figure out who is at fault, whether a time extension should be granted and if there’s monetary compensation owing because of the delay.
between a contractor and the project’s owner, there must be an agreement as to who caused the schedule delay and whether it can be categorized as one of these delay types:
- excusable / non-excusable
- non-excusable
- critical / non-critical
- compensable
- concurrent
to reach agreement, we need a forensic scheduling expert to perform an analysis on the project’s cpm schedule.
check out our live course on forensic delay analysis.
impacted as-planned delay analysis
there are various ways to perform a delay analysis on a cpm schedule. the impacted as-planned method is one of the most straightforward analysis techniques.
we will start with the as-planned schedule; this is typically your last approved baseline or the project schedule as it was planned to be executed.
the impacted as-planned technique is called an additive technique because you will be adding delays to the as-planned schedule to determine the impacts of those delays.
why do you add delays to the as-planned?
think of it this way. it’s like you are saying;
“before i started any execution on the project, if i had known about these delays in advance, what would the impact have been to the project?“
this type of analysis is often done after-the-fact, after the project is completed to determine how delays affected the outcome of the project.
when to perform an as-planned analysis
- before the project starts, if you wish to predict or forecast the effects of potential delays on the schedule. it could be part of a risk assessment.
- if the schedule hasn’t been properly updated during execution or is inadequate, you might be limited to using the as-planned methodology, rather than another contemporaneous methodology.
- after a change or delay has occurred, after-the-fact, to determine how an owner or contractor delay affected the outcome of the project.
here are the steps to perform the impact as-planned analysis:
- start with your as-planned schedule, which is typically your baseline schedule.
- identify the critical path and note the project’s finish date.
- identify a delay event and its duration. insert an activity into your schedule that represents the delay event and link it appropriately with relationship logic.
- run cpm scheduling and note the impact to the project’s critical path and finish date.
- insert any further delay events as activities into your schedule, one at a time. run cpm scheduling after each insertion and note the impacts to the project.
want to see impacted as-planned in action?
watch the video excerpt from our delay detective – forensic schedule analysis course. in the video, dr. de la garza will explain the procedure and concepts behind using the impacted as-planned technique to assess impacts on a construction schedule.
disadvantages of the impacted as-planned delay analysis methodology
there are a number of analysis methodologies that be used in a forensic delay analysis. the impacted as-planned method was widely used in early days of cpm scheduling, but as we’ve become more sophisticated in our scheduling, as-planned isn’t used today as it once was, for these reasons:
- impacted as-planned doesn’t take into account as-built information
- impacted as-planned ignores the fact that critical path(s) can change as a schedule is progressed
however, in my opinion, the impacted as-planned method is simple to understand and it does provide a good starting point for schedulers who are interested in growing their knowledge of forensic delay analysis. it also provides a good basis for learning other more sophisticated methods such as time-impact analysis.
interested in learning other forensic delay techniques?
