how do we truly assess the cost impacts of accelerating construction work on a project?<\/h3>\n
let’s take a minute to look only at the impacts to direct costs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n direct costs are always linked\u00a0to a specific work item in the schedule. the following items fall into the category of direct costs<\/strong> for construction contractors or owners:<\/p>\n now that we’re clear on which costs we’re referring to, let’s discuss an example work scenario.<\/p>\n let’s say we have a 12 day cast-in-place slab activity. our estimates say this is a 12 day activity following typical procedures. however, we would like to compress the duration in half to complete in 6 days.<\/p>\n the steps involved in this activity include building forms, installing rebar, pouring the concrete, finishing, stripping forms, reshoring and lastly stripping the reshores.<\/p>\n compressing by 1 day<\/strong><\/p>\n to save 1 day on this activity, we might implement a simple adjustment of procedures. perhaps we opt for a concrete mix with accelerations to saving on curing. another option might be to increase worker time from 8 hr\/d to 10 hr\/d. both of these options are fairly inexpensive to achieve the 1 day of time savings. our estimate is a cost increase by 10%.<\/p>\n compressing by 3 days<\/strong><\/p>\n to compress the activity by 3 days, we’ll employ the same suggestion as before – opting for a special concrete mix. but we’ll also have to increase worker time to 10 hr\/d and approve work on saturdays.\u00a0with the longer hours and weekend work, we now incur overtime costs (x 1.5) for our team. in this case our costs increase by 17%.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n compressing by 6 days<\/strong><\/p>\n we’re now brainstorming and implementing many strategies to reach our goal of reducing the activity to 6 days from it’s original 12 days. perhaps we have to implement a different formwork system or bring in crane pump instead of crane and bucket. and we still have to use the faster curing concrete and approve overtime hours and weekend work. direct costs have now increased by %70 on this activity to achieve a 6 day time savings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n as we desire to compress the activity more, we always opt to implement the most inexpensive options. however, to save more and more time, our limited options become more and more expensive. also our viable strategic options become fewer and fewer (and possibly more complex).<\/p>\n let’s have a picture.<\/p>\n in a compression situation, for direct costs, the relationship of\u00a0duration to costs is inverse. as we compress and decrease task\u00a0duration, costs increase, perhaps exponentially depending on how far we go.<\/p>\n compressing a project schedule requires a specific process that looks at both duration and cost impacts in order to optimize the two. of course, if costs aren’t a concern, then you can compress significantly.\u00a0in most situations, direct costs are tightly managed so you’ll want to calculate the true cost impact of compressing a task to keep your budget in check.<\/p>\n\n
![\"cast](\"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1200px-concrete_formwork-600x397.jpg\" "\\"cast")
<\/p>\nexample – accelerating construction work<\/h3>\n
![\"project](\"\/\/www.deco-dalles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/project-acceleraton-costs-vs-duration.jpg\" "\\"project")
<\/p>\n
![\"construction](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/297539\/da912eb9-51e0-48e9-9bd3-dee6a8e48689.png\")
<\/a><\/span><\/span>