Abstract–Performing an update schedule review, submitted by a 3^rd party, requires a vastly different skill sets than that of creating a schedule. The scheduler who creates a schedule works with a large number of construction professionals who will provide feedback and guidance. Typically, the scheduler who reviews a 3^rd party’s schedule submittal works alone. This process can be quite daunting for the first-time reviewer. The reviewer does not need to work alone as long as there is access to AACE’s incredible library of Recommended Practices and technical papers. This article focuses on the key documents that aid in determining the main topics of the review memorandum, assist in identifying the culprits that make schedule updates non-compliant, as well as provide solid guidelines on how to gauge schedule’s overall quality. The authors hope to inspire and motivate project controls professionals to advance their skill set from being a proficient scheduler to becoming a trusted scheduling consultant. This article was first presented as PS.3648 at the 2021 AACE International Conference & Expo.

Introduction

The owner of a planned project is either a public entity, a private organization such as a corporation, or even a well-financed individual. This entity typically realizes that they do not have the time, knowledge, and experience to construct the project in an optimal manner. For this, they often employ a team of professionals who do have this ability to turn the plan into reality. This article refers to the team hired to perform the work as contractors. The owner creates documents that describe the work to be performed and contracts that work out to a contractor.

If the contractors are responsible for the timeliness, cost, and quality of the work, they must be allowed to make their own decisions on the means and methods of the work. The owner should keep the project at ‘arms reach’ and only monitor the work from afar unless the contract says otherwise. The project schedule is normally the method of communication and reference for decisions on the project.

The contract typically requires the contractor to show their work plan by submitting a project schedule to the owner. Reviewing this schedule usually requires the expertise of a professional scheduler, who is hired by the owner to represent owner’s interests. The schedule reviewer evaluates this schedule for compliance to contractual requirements and professional scheduling norms and best practices. The schedule reviewer may negotiate with the contractor for changes to the schedule that would allow for better monitoring and could be used as a reference for dispute resolution. The goal of this process is for the contractor to submit a qualified project schedule and for the schedule reviewer to accept it as the basis for completing the work. This ‘baseline schedule’ will be used to monitor and record progress throughout the project.

This article does not cover the process of reviewing a baseline schedule. Reviewing a schedule update is very different from reviewing a baseline schedule. Instead, it is presumed that the baseline schedule review process has already occurred, and the next step is covered: monitor and update the project schedule to reflect progress and changes to the work plan.

Instead of presenting the author’s opinions, this work is based upon professionally recognized AACE International publications, namely recommended practices (RPs), and technical papers. To assist the reader in finding more on each subject, references are liberally placed throughout, with more detail available in the reference section at the end. This article straightforwardly presents performing a schedule review by the numbers.

Inputs of Performing an Update Schedule Review

Schedule management/control is the third significant section of the traditional planning and scheduling phases (the first two defined as project planning and scheduled development). During this phase, actual project progress is reviewed, activities are monitored, especially critical and near-critical activities that impact the project, variances and trends are analyzed, and reports are prepared to deliver the project’s status to the owner and stakeholders.[1]

Performing an update schedule review is the process of analyzing the schedule update submittal for the accuracy and rationality of changes that reflect project status and progress.[2] This process can be broken down into the three stages of review: inputs, process, and outputs. Figure 1 depicts the data flow diagram of the process.

Abstract–Initiating a pharmaceutical capital project requires a deep understanding of the unique processes related to current good manufacturing practices, along with experience in the design, procurement, construction, commissioning, qualification, validation of facilities, utilities, and equipment. Additionally, planning should account for the regulatory affairs that approve bringing a product to market in this highly regulated industry. While most of the pharmaceutical capital projects are schedule-driven in a first-to-market business model, improper planning and delays constantly jeopardize the release of new products. This article describes practical techniques to plan and schedule new construction and renovations of existing buildings; typical sequences and durations used for commissioning, qualification, and validation activities; timing for engagement with different stakeholders; common pharmaceutical terminology employed during all phases of a project; and recommended approaches to leverage previously performed work to potentially gain time in the project schedule. Novice and seasoned practitioners alike will benefit from following these procedures. The author has successfully used these practices in manufacturing facilities for oral, parenteral, and topical administration products located in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. This article was first presented as PS-3597 at the 2021 AACE International Conference & Expo.

Introduction and Background

The global pharmaceutical industry is projected to grow during the upcoming years due, in part, to an aging and growing population, rising income levels, new diseases, and emerging medical conditions [1, p. 1]. While the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most regulated and capital-intensive on the planet, it is also more profitable than any other large public company [2, p. 841]. Since these companies operate in an increasingly competitive market, they have adopted creative business strategies to expedite product delivery. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is just one example of how the pharmaceutical industry can quickly scale research, development, and manufacturing processes to be first to market with a product. The pandemic environment also supports the assertions as to why most pharmaceutical capital projects are schedule driven.

The term pharmaceutical as used in this article refers to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and nutraceutical sub-industries as they relate to the use of chemical and biological compounds, dietary supplements, and food additives. Furthermore, the term includes capital projects associated with oral, parenteral, dermal, and injection applications and research projects, including vivarium and process development.

Facilities and engineering teams work on a variety of capital projects to address the needs related to products and processes specific to this industry. These projects may include new production or support facilities, central utility plant upgrades, new cleanrooms or renovations, operational expansions, interior fit-outs, technology transfers, automation, and building and environmental management systems. Projects can be executed on one site, within one building or across multiple buildings; or on multiple sites, located in the same country or across the globe; and can be completed concurrently or sequentially.

These teams face common challenges as they begin to plan and execute projects. Common denominators include project complexity; massive coordination with multiple workstreams; stringent room environmental conditions; qualified workforce resources; changing equipment and software technologies; rigorous documentation, validation, and regulatory requirements; operational consolidation projects; and multiple company reorganizations. The fact that these capital projects may be executed in different countries adds to the complexity since the process requires qualifying designers, contractors, vendors, and suppliers to ensure that they are familiar with the industry’s quality, environment, and documentation requirements.

This article presents practical planning and scheduling techniques that address these challenges by focusing on the timing for engagement with different workstream leaders; typical sequences and durations used for commissioning, qualification, and validation (CQV) activities; and recommended approaches to leverage previously performed work to potentially gain time in the project schedule. The author uses pharmaceutical terminology familiar to all phases of a project. This document will not cover the business process, sanction of candidate products, procurement of architectural and engineering services, or supply chain management after products are approved by regulatory agencies as these are company-specific and tend to vary widely.

Phases of a Pharmaceutical Capital Project

Pharmaceutical projects require additional phases that are not common in other industries since they need to maintain the integrity, quality, and safety of their processes and products by ensuring that they meet current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) and government regulatory requirements. In addition to design, procurement, construction, and commissioning, these projects must go through qualification, validation, and regulatory phases. Project teams ensure that the asset meets not only the design intent and requirements but, most importantly, the manufacturing processes and the product.

The project scope definition and planning stages follow a phase-gate process where front-end loading (FEL) and a project definition rating index are the most widely used rating systems. Steering committee members evaluate projects at every gate and decide whether to approve them, place them on hold, ask for a reevaluation, or cancel them. Projects with weak scope definition fail to secure approval and funding to move to the next gate. To secure approval, deliverables must be organized, and the first two gates should be conducted with discipline and additional rigor.

To be successful, the project team should start a coordination effort and an integrated documentation process as soon as practically possible after project kick-off. Identifying the departments and leads that will be involved on the project should start as soon as the project is sanctioned; the goal is to create a core team that reports to a project sponsor and to a steering committee. This team will identify, collect, confirm, and document the project requirements. A typical team composition is shown in Table 1.

Abstract–When looking at why many major projects fail to meet their cost and schedule expectations, the root cause is often a misalignment between the engineered solution and the owner’s business case. This article will explore this issue by briefly describing the gatekeeping process. At its core, gatekeeping is a decision-making process. The article looks at decision making in the context of projects. Stakeholder management, salience and interaction with gatekeepers are also explored. The interrelationships between gatekeeping, decision making, and stakeholder management is illustrated by looking at both a simple and a slightly more complex project. Even in these simple examples it is apparent how misalignment can occur. From an owner’s perspective, misalignment at the project approval stage can have very significant financial repercussions. This article offers three strategies to mitigate potential misalignment, based on the author’s examination of decision making and stakeholder management. This article was first presented at the 2021 AACE International Conference and Expo as OWN.3666.

Introduction
When looking at why many major projects fail to meet their cost and schedule expectations, the root cause is often a misalignment between the engineered solution and the owner’s business case. The owner’s gatekeeping function sets the parameters that various aspects of the business are evaluated against. This in turn defines the planning deliverables required at each gate, especially for the project execution team. When this effort breaks down, ill-defined and ill-prepared projects make their way through the process resulting in late changes and poor project results. This article shows that by understanding stakeholders, gatekeepers, and the decision-making processes, this misalignment can be mitigated.

The article will explore this issue by first describing the gatekeeping process. At its core, gatekeeping is a decision-making process. The article will look at decision-making in the context of projects. Key aspects of stakeholder management will be summarized. The interrelationships between gatekeeping, decision making, and stakeholder management will be illustrated by looking at two different projects as case studies. Finally, aspects of alignment and misalignment will be explored.

Gatekeeping
Best practice in capital project execution is based on a stage gate approach. For asset creating projects, most organizations use stages and gates as shown in Figure 1.

Typical Stage Gates for Asset Creating Projects

Abstract–An earned value management system (EVMS), which monitors contractor performance, is a requirement for program and project management for all major acquisitions by the United States Federal Government with development effort: (i.e., an asset requiring management attention because of its importance to an agency’s mission; high development, operating, or maintenance costs; high risk and/or high return).

As an area less explored in earned value management (EVM) practices, this paper will survey the application of an EVMS for operations activities defined as:

• Non-capital asset activities that are projects (or project – like) with definable start and end dates, with discrete scopes of work, and measurable accomplishments; as well as
• Routine or recurring facility or environmental operations.

This paper will examine the use of an EVMS to evaluate performance of operations and maintenance activities required once construction of a capital asset is complete and being used as intended. Such activities include upgrades and maintenance in order for capital assets to meet their mission function over a life-cycle (through repair, replacement, etc.).

This paper will provide background on this topic from the perspective of the Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Program. In addition, it will provide material from a panel discussion provided by a group of experts from the October 2019 Office of Environmental Management Project Management Workshop, as well as material from subsequent research on this topic.

Introduction

This paper discusses the applicability for using an earned value management system (EVMS) for measuring performance of operations activities for government programs, specifically with a focus on the Environmental Management (EM) Program of the United States Department of Energy (DOE). EM was established by Congress in 1989 to manage the clean-up of areas where federal activities have contaminated the environment – such as nuclear weapons production facilities and military installations.

This paper will supply the necessary background to provide a better understanding for the role of operations activities in the management of project and program baselines as well as their budgets for the Environmental Management Program. The general requirements of an EVMS within the United States Government for capital asset projects and operations activities will be discussed. To support this effort, this paper provides definitions for both capital asset projects as well as operations and maintenance activities which very often coexist in environmental cleanup efforts and combine to form an EM program baseline.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) – whose mission is to serve the Congress and the American people by collecting, analyzing, and reporting on information about federal programs and services was directed to review the EM program, with a focus on its management of operations activities. A summary of the results of their investigation, published in February 2019, stated “Until EM revises its cleanup policy to follow leading practices, EM’s operations activities are at risk of uncontrolled changes to scope, exceeding initial budget and schedule, and failing to meet their original goals.” [1, Highlights] As part of the response to this report, in October 2019, the EM Office of Project Management held a panel discussion by a group of experts on EVMS for operations activities during the Office of Environmental Management Project Management Workshop. The panel, listed in Appendix 1, consisted of one employee of the EM Program and four contractors, each with extensive experience with EVM and its application at a number of agencies, including previous experience at: National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Their current work experience covers the following federal agencies:

• The DOE EM Program (described above);
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. DOE, responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science; [2, page 6] and
• The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) – a United States Army program dedicated to the disposal of chemical weapons in a safe, environmentally sound, cost-effective manner. [3 pages 12, 22, and 87]

The panel members’ experiences with these technically challenging programs, would provide good insight for best practices for the use of EVM in operations activities that can be readily applied to the EM Program. The next sections discusses and expands upon some of the major points addressed during the panel discussion, along with extra information not discussed during the workshop. This includes a discussion of an industrial sector where EVM for operations has already been implemented: the shipbuilding industry.

The Advantages of Earned Value Management

EVM provides a measurement of the work accomplished on a given project and/or program scope within a given period and compares it with the planned work scheduled for that same period along with the actual cost of work accomplished during that period of time. This provides improved understanding for project and program performance status, including an estimated cost and time to complete. In addition, EVM provides tools to manage risks, alerting management to potential problems and informing their forecasts to project completion. A general summary of what EVM enables is shown in Figure 1 (below).

Abstract–Delays often originate within the architectural and engineering (A/E) design effort. The schedules developed to plan, organize, and monitor design tend to be high-level and not very effective to accurately model the work at a level of detail that allows for on time, on budget, and quality completion. When the schedule does not provide the right level of detail or complexity, its value for monitoring is limited. Sometimes there is even a failure to recognize the difference between consumed hours and progress. Failure to use the right schedule can lead to performance issues resulting in late design delivery, over budget delivery, or poor-quality design delivery, or any combination thereof. A well-designed and managed A/E design schedule promotes quick and accurate updates, supports proactive analysis to minimize delays and claims, and aligns with other project controls functions to enable integrated cost-schedule-risk design scheduling. The authors, working for firms that provide engineering design services, have experience in working with the designers to develop the right level of detail for the design portion of a project, to establish a stage-gate approach to design milestones so they can align with cost, schedule, and risk monitoring, and so performance can be accurately measured. The authors bring a wide range of perspectives, from process engineering design scheduling to design-build A/E scheduling, to construction manager (CM) agency A/E monitoring, to CM at risk A/E support scheduling. This article will offer a proven approach that demonstrates guidelines for schedule design, development, monitoring, analysis, updating, and reporting, as well as set the benchmark to facilitate mitigation when necessary. This article was first presented as PS.3427 at the 2020 AACE International Conference & Expo.

Introduction

Design scheduling is handled by several different parties, or parties working in several different roles and contracts. A/Es might work directly for the stakeholder or employer on a project, a contractor in the form of a design-builder, or a contractor working as a concessionaire for a public-private-partnership (PPP or P3).

Background

To discuss this issue, it is important to define design scheduling and establish the value of providing professional critical path method (CPM) scheduling to plan and manage the design process. Many projects fall behind during the design process, in design-bid-build (DBB), design-build (DB), engineering-procurement-construction (EPC), and construction manager at risk (CMAR). Each of these project delivery processes has its own challenges, but design schedule management is a primary one. The complexity of architectural-engineering (A/E) design is mostly because of the variety of disciplines necessary to complete a project, the scope development maturity, and the ability to assess progress in design. At a given stage of design, say 30% design development, the structural design might be at 60% complete, while commissioning might be at 0% complete. Developing a schedule of this sort can be difficult and monitoring can be even more difficult.

What is Design Scheduling?

Design scheduling is the act of planning the design activities, developing a CPM schedule for those design activities, and maintaining that schedule through a regular updating process that captures progress information, assesses performance, predicts trending and delay issues, and provides corrective actions to enable the design to complete all milestones on time.

How is it Commonly Handled?

Typically, A/Es develop and maintain their own progress schedules using different software and methods. Since the schedules are most often not shared with other stakeholders, there is a reduced need for a high level of technical scheduling effort as would more often be seen in the construction process. However, all designs evolve through phases, a series of increasing levels of scope definition, and assign milestones representing the completion percentage at the end of each phase. In many projects, especially the more successful, the milestones act as the gates at which cost and schedule reviews are performed to ensure that the design is progressing and maintaining the original budget and duration established in the conceptual stage. As cost and schedule are verified at each stage, the gate opens and allows design to move into the next phase.

This is often called a stage-gate approach, and studies have shown that when done appropriately, the project is more likely to achieve the design-to-budget goal, defined as ensuring that the design stays within the planned budget as it evolves to full maturity. Meeting this goal is enabled by a formalized process of detailed review at the different levels of scope definition, ensuring that the budget, schedule, and risk issues have been updated and validated. Combined with a good contingency process, this evolving process of projects controls support and verification, helps identify any design issues that are at risk of driving up budgets and extending schedules.

Value of Design Scheduling

Depending on contract type, many projects cannot proceed into procurement and then construction without design progressing as planned. Many projects under DB and EPC delivery methods progress to procurement and or construction without a completed design. EPC or DB project durations tend to be both quite long duration and technically complex projects that often require multiple phases of design. For these projects, the design effort is often scheduled in the CPM schedule. In both cases, design costs are related directly and only to labor, so productivity and production are both important. Issues in design delivery are caused by taking more time than anticipated or quality concerns. Using the stage-gate approach limits both potential sources of over run.

Risks of a Weak Design Schedule

If the A/E does not have a plan for completion of the design within the planned duration, it is unlikely that they will engage the right individuals, or the number of individuals needed, and the design effort will fall behind, ultimately delaying the start of the project.

There are also risks associated with the designers working without project controls monitoring, so the scope of work can grow, or features can be added, since there is no feedback related to the costs of the design, or the feedback comes after the design is complete. This is called scope creep when additional scope is added, often unintentionally, or gold-plating, when the A/E designs more expensive features than originally budgeted, which will increase the costs and duration often unbeknownst to the stakeholders.

Benefits of a Good Design Schedule

A well-designed and managed design schedule will allow the project to meet the stakeholders’ goals in progressing through the project phases into procurement and then construction as scheduled and within budget. Conceptual project schedules will show time allowed for phases of design, producing increasing levels of scope definition or design maturity, until final construction documents are produced.

As design progresses, according to the original schedule, staff work is assigned consistent with the design budget. Senior, more expensive, designers are assigned for the innovative and technical requirements. More junior, less expensive, computer design operators produce the details and production drawings. Each stage-gate milestone receives reviews to ensure compliance with budget, schedule, constructability, value planning, and risk. When done properly, the design matures in a controllable fashion, the stakeholders are aware of the adherence to the goals, and the phase-gate process allows corrective actions when there are deviations from the original benchmarks.

Studies Related to Design Scheduling

The value of this effort is reinforced in a 2014 study, by McGraw Hill, which notes that, “The ability to develop a set of documents that meet the stakeholder’s program requirements and are constructible within budget is unanimously cited as the most-valued metric for design team performance . . .” [page 6, of reference 8]

In the same study, the second highest cause of uncertainty with greatest impact on cost is stakeholder program or design changes and the third and fourth are design errors and design omissions, with the program design changes ranking significantly greater than the design errors/omissions. [page 14, of reference 8] Progressing through the design process with a weak phase-gate process can allow design development that is focused only on the design and not the budget or schedule, making it subject to scope creep. Many design changes can cause delays to other disciplines and hours expended on designing features or even options that may or may not be adopted. Without a phase-gate approach delays to time and budget, due to accumulated changes, can and do go underestimated until the end of the design process causing overruns in budget and/or time. The impact on the schedule can be surprisingly significant since budget overruns that are discovered late in the design process will often create a need for cost reductions. These cost reductions, commonly poorly named as value engineering efforts, can become increasingly critical as the team is trying to get construction work started. Value engineering should take place much earlier in the design process, in fact, it can be done as soon as there are drawings to review and the next step after value planning. However, when the budget is overrun and there is pressure to release construction drawings to start work, what is called value engineering is usually just quality reductions, materials changes, or even scope deletion. A detailed state-gate project controls effort integrated with the design process can help ensure the project is designed to the original budget, or if there are legitimate changes that require budget increases, the stakeholder is notified early enough to minimize impact on the schedule.

Project Delivery Methods Associated with Phases of Design

The type of project delivery method contributes to some of the uncertainties in A/E design since in traditional delivery the A/E has ultimate quality control that is tested by the bid market. In many other delivery methods, the contractor either takes over the design or is intimately involved in monitoring design as it advances through the stages from conceptual to bid or tender documents.

Design-Bid-Build – Complete Design = Stakeholder to 100%

The traditional, private sector project delivery method typically involves three sequential project phases: The design phase, which requires the services of a designer who will be the designer of record for the project; the bid phase, when a contractor is selected; and a build or construction phase, when the project is built by the selected (typically low bid) contractor. This sequence usually leads to a fixed-price contract. [page 3, paragraph 2 of reference 7] In a design-bid-build type delivery method, the stakeholder will be responsible for most if not all aspects of the design.

A risk to a stakeholder with a design-bid-build delivery method is that they warrant the sufficiency of the plans and specifications to which the selected contractor will ultimately build the project. This means the stakeholder/designer will be responsible for any issues that may arise during construction related to errors or omissions in the plans. There is little or no opportunity for the designer and contractor to collaborate during the design phase, which can ultimately contribute to time and cost overruns due to undiscovered design errors. Further, without input from experienced construction expert staff, the design will likely be less constructible and efficient.

These design errors or omissions can often stem from lack of planning during the design. A well-developed stage-gate approach with clearly defined design deliverables helps the teamwork towards distinct achievable interim goals as opposed to three or four major deliverable dates. Also, early involvement of the contractor or construction manager can help to recognize many of these potential issues from a construction point of view. For this reason, part of the stage-gate approach should include constructability review. Constructability reviews are part of the evolution from value planning in pre-design to value engineering and constructability reviews during design as drawings are produced. These quick reviews by construction experienced individuals ensures that designs can be built as they bring eyes of physical, real-world constraints to the design. Questions generated during this process always add value and support a more robust design.

EPC – Stakeholder to ~15%, Contractor to 100%

In the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) type of project delivery method used commonly in industrial and process industries, the stakeholder performs studies or research, decides to go forward with a project, determines the results needed from the project, develops the appropriate scope definition to ensure understanding of the stakeholder’s needs, then hands the scope definition over to the selected contractor who proceeds with advancing the conceptual phase design, moving on to feasibility, to front-end engineering and design (FEED), to detail design, then finally to implementation.

Generally, these are lump sum/fixed price contracts. This places the risk of final scope definition and performance on the contractor. In addition, it makes it easier for the stakeholder since managing one contractor is simpler than managing several contractors, and much simpler than interceding in the historical conflicts between contractors and designers. Using an EPC firm will allow for clean lines of communication from the design to construction phases and less mistakes because of the team being unified under one company or contract. The stakeholder must be clear with their goals in the early program and communication throughout the project. Without a clear vision there will be scope ambiguities and potential scope creep and it will be difficult for the EPC firm to plan, monitor, and control the project. The main disadvantage for the stakeholder will be less design control.

The success of the EPC firm will depend on the robustness of their planning and scheduling, which will reduce confusion and conflicts in the field where the costs for rework are much higher than costs of design changes earlier in the process.

Design-Build – Stakeholder to ~30%, Contractor ~30% to 100%

Design-build delivery method in commercial projects is similar to the EPC delivery method, however, this concept is commonly used in many industries outside of the EPC process world, particularly as a means to shorten the construction duration and limit risks to the stakeholder for performance. The stakeholder details the drawings to the point at which it defines the scope of work without eliminating opportunities for innovative design by the contractor. The documents that the stakeholder prepares for use in bidding and procuring the contractors are often called “bridging documents” or the “program definition” documents. The contractor includes the detailed design firm on the DB contractor team, so there is a more engineering-construction integrated approach to design. The contractor can detail the design in specific scopes of work to the point at which it allows construction to proceed, and it accommodates early release of some design packages, advancing the construction. An industry term for this staged release of early trade contract work packages is often called “fast-track” construction, and there are implementations relying on fast-track delivery such as “advanced work packaging” that formalize the effort and helps improve the quality of the transition to construction.

CM at Risk (CMAR) Project Delivery – Stakeholder to 100% with CMAR Providing Project Controls

With CMAR delivery, the CM acts in the interests of the stakeholder, providing project controls expertise and construction experience to help monitor design by VE, constructability reviews, estimating, and scheduling. This allows the CMAR to coordinate with the designers to plan and schedule early trade contractor work in packages that allow construction to start earlier than would be possible with full design required before bidding. This method is commonly contracted on a cost-plus-a-fee in the early stages to enable the CMAR to provide these services, but most often, converts to a fixed fee for a fixed duration contract once the scope definition has advanced sufficiently for an accurate bid. Risks to the stakeholder lie in the reputation and competence of the CMAR, as well as the full engagement of the CMAR in validating the budget and schedule of the design as it matures. However, with an experienced and competent CMAR, the project can sequence trade work and shorten the duration while minimizing stakeholder risk. Once the CMAR is willing to convert to the fixed price and duration, his role is more akin to a traditional general contractor, taking on all the risk of performance.

Alignment of Design Stages and Project Controls with Project Delivery Method

Designs mature through the design phases and so project controls services must track with estimates and schedules aligned by the level of scope definition and the usage of the budget and schedule. The characteristics of the estimates and schedules and the alignment with scope definition are best explained in the AACE International recommended practices for cost and schedule classes. [References 2 and 3, (page 3 in both publications)].

Pre-Design Phase
In the pre-design phase, there are no drawings to define the scope of work. The project is defined by a statement of work or other narrative description of the project. Estimates and schedules are very high-level, providing analogous or parametric level products with a wide range of accuracy to the lack of scope definition. AACE Class 5 estimates are typically provided during this phase, as well as AACE Class 5 schedules. However, these early budgets and schedules are the beginning of the benchmarks against which the project will be monitored and analyzed, so it is vital that pre-design phase estimating and scheduling is appropriate and reasonable.

At this stage, value planning is useful as it helps provide guidelines as the project moves into early design using appropriate techniques and products for the location and industry.

The delivery method at this phase has generally not been determined so the project controls services are typically provided by the stakeholder, whether in-house or by consultant. Engaging the project controls professionals during pre-design provides guidance in selecting an appropriate project delivery method and is a strong indicator of a successful project.

Concept Phase of Scope Definition
In this phase, project controls services continue to be comprised primarily of developing conceptual budgets in the form of capacity factored or parametric modeled AACE Class 5 concept screening estimates, preliminary schedules in the form of AACE Class 5 concept screening milestone schedules, and value planning to help determine the construction means and methods. In some industries, when the professionals providing estimating and project durations have extensive experience and benchmarked databases, the range of accuracy can be narrowed for both budget and schedule, which reduces risks during later phases.

Design Phase
In the preliminary design phase, there are likely to be sketches, plan layouts, line drawings, and site concepts. However, as design progresses through this phase, further development will result in much more detailed drawings. The design phase is divided into sub-phases based on design development progress stages. Good practices suggest that completion of each phase should result in a thorough cost, schedule, risk, and scope review to ensure that the design is progressing satisfactorily and can be built using efficient techniques, at the cost specified in the budget, and within the planned project duration. With the stage-gate process, the design engineering halts until the cost, schedule, risk, and scope review verifies that the design still fits to the budget and project duration.

Concept Development – to 15%
In this phase, project controls services are comprised primarily of developing study budgets in the form of equipment factored or parametric modeled AACE Class 4 estimates [1] for study or feasibility purposes, planning milestone and project events AACE Class 4 schedules [2] for feasibility study purposes. During this phase, scope definition is primarily still the responsibility of the owner.

Design work is an iterative process. As a result of the nature of this work there is a tendency to only want to track hand-offs between disciplines in the schedule for all the phases, especially the conceptual phase. However, the more detail in the inter-discipline relationships, the better. The best practice is to plan for the known scope then adjust as the details become clearer. Tracking only hand-offs never yields an accurate schedule or a schedule that can be tracked and reported on in a valuable way. In schedules that only track hand-offs the logic ends up needing to constantly change to match what is really going on, which is unnecessary work. Planning for the known scope, then making adjustments, also helps in successive phases because the teams may change (and probably will), but if the new team can see what happened in the previous phases in detail, then they can avoid unnecessary rework.

Schematic/Scoping – 15% to 30% (FEED 2 Package)
In the 30% maturity of scope definition, the design phase is likely to be the start of detailed design documents, providing more scope definition. Project controls in this phase are comprised primarily of developing sanction budgets once again in the form of budget authorization AACE Class 4-unit cost and line-item estimates, and more detailed planning AACE Class 3 authorization or sanction schedules [2]. At this point in the scope definition maturity, the responsibility for design depends on the project delivery method, as noted above. However, the discussion here about the project controls services supporting design monitoring may be provided by the owner, the A/E, a consultant to the owner, or the contractor when the delivery is design-build or EPC.

During the approximate 15% to 30% design, commonly referred to the schematic and preliminary design stages of the design, the key opportunity is to ensure the design is beginning to align design deliverables with the construction schedule needs. The CPM schedule can now start to support further refinement of the deliverables and specify how interim design stages will be monitored and tracked. One of the goals and focuses during this stage of scheduling for design should be establishing design definable features of work for the major deliverables.

Establishing these interim design features of work deliverables can help to:

• Define task flow through each major deliverable
• Establish critical path dependencies necessary to drive a design deliverable to completion
• Help alert the project team to specific needs required by one another.

As discussed earlier in this article, key design deliverables are typically tracked to certain percentages throughout the life of the design, but the problem is assigning progress to these percentages. To successfully do this, decisions need to be made as to what percentages apply to disciplines at each stage gate. It is during this stage of design that the designer should include additional design players, i.e., sub-consultants, out-side agencies, or the technical team to collaboratively discuss roles and responsibilities as it relates to the design and schedule. It is important during this early stage to collaboratively agree on interim design delivery milestones to help ensure clear deadlines providing scope definition for each related discipline. These discipline-specific scope definition completion percentages should be used in scheduling.

During the conceptual design stage, a milestone schedule was developed to establish the major deliverables. This stage of design is where the schedule should start to move from conceptual/milestone driven to evolve into a more detailed logically driven schedule that contains these discipline-specific scope definition completion percentages.

See the following list for some possible expected design submittals goals during the 15% and 30% stages that can influence the schedule planning:

15% (Schematic Design)
Develop design draft schematics and concept layouts
Initial opinions of probable construction costs
Determine that the concept is consistent with the design budget

30% (Preliminary Design)
Finalize basis of design and advance spatial design
Design is suitable for an initial constructability review
Begin drafting the project manual

The 30% preliminary design phase is also the stage where not only the design schedule criteria is developed, but the construction implementation of the project should also start to be included in the project schedule. This should help the design team better understand how the project will likely be constructed with insight provided by experienced construction managers (CM). This will of course require involvement of CMs to assist the project team in bringing their construction background to the table. Their input early in the design process will beneficially impact design, ultimately yielding a better, more efficient, and more complete design, as well as promoting early resolution of design problems before impacting the schedule.

Planning to support the design submittal goals occurs during this stage; with products such as contract time determination, schedules used to establish contract delivery dates, and pre-bid contractor’s schedules from a select group of approved contractors to help align the construction with early design. These schedules will need to be reviewed by the stakeholder and are used for confirmation of procurement decisions and to start monitoring progress at the various stages to ensure they are on track either through durations or interim milestones.

Another often overlooked value to the design schedule at this stage is to start to establish critical paths through the design criteria so the CPM schedule can ensure contributing disciplines provide their submittals on time to allow successor design to proceed. This effort will increase in later stages as more detailed designs are developed.

Collaboratively establishing design deliverables will significantly improve the quality and efficiency during this design stage. While this stage of design is still relatively early, construction and schedule input now could lead to significant value engineering savings that would not affect bidding documents.

Design Development – 30% to 50% (FEED 3 Package)
In the 50% maturity of scope definition, the design will be expanded to more detailed drawings in multiple disciplines, requiring considerably more coordination between the disciplines. Project controls in this phase are comprised primarily of developing control budgets in the form of control AACE Class 2 estimates [1] providing detailed unit cost and line-item take-off estimates and bottom-up planning AACE Class 2 schedules [2] for control or bid/tender use. These estimates and schedules are provided by different entities based on the project delivery method. For design-bid-build, the owner still has the responsibility and provides the integrated project controls support, either in-house or with a consultant, for CMAR, the CMAR provides the support sometimes with the owner providing a program or construction manager to validate the results, and with design-build or EPC, the contractor starts to pick up the integrated project controls support to their own design effort. These responsibilities for the integrated project controls services are consistent through the rest of the stages of design maturity.

Construction Documents – 50% to 80%
As the design matures from 50 to approximately 80% complete scope definition, the design is being finalized, disciplines are coordinated in a feedback loop, quality control is implemented with check sets and/or building information modeling with 3D drawings. Project controls in this phase are comprised primarily of developing check estimate budgets in the form of bid/tender Class 1 detailed unit cost with detailed take-off estimates at the same level of detail as contractor bid documents, producing detailed planning Class 2 or possibly Class 1 bid/tender control schedules [2].

Bid/Tender Documents – 80% to 100%
The goal of this design stage is typically to produce a complete set of drawings and specifications that have passed internal quality control and coordination and are ready for construction. The design is suitable for final client review, permit application and allows an opinion of probable construction cost and project contractual duration that will serve for review and selection of the contractor. This is also the stage for a final bid document review to ensure everything aligns with stakeholder and third-party requirements. Lastly, the final goal is to publish the bid documents and supplemental information for the market.

Depending on the project delivery method, the responsibility for completing the design can vary. The scheduling effort during this final stage will help ensure each of the design package criteria is met with all submittals and is complete. Accurately modeling the final stages can ensure all reviews or meetings are scheduled in advance to help ensure a collaborative communication between all design team members or stakeholders.

Recommended Practices for Design Schedule Development

Phase-Gate Approach

The approach that is commonly called a phase-gate approach to project controls support during design has proven success when followed appropriately (Phase Gate is addressed by the Construction Industry Institute in discussions of Front-End Planning effort). This approach uses the design development phases or stages noted above and recommends the use of an approval gate at each stage. When the design has developed to match the stage of scope definition, design is not allowed to proceed until a thorough review of the cost, schedule, risk, constructability, and value engineering shows that the project is still tracking within the target benchmark, opening the gate to allow design to proceed into the next phase up to the next gate.

Abstract–Just when a team thinks that a project is smooth sailing in its early stages, a critical deliverable is missed… now what? While many owners and scheduling specifications have requirements for owner approval of contractors’ baseline and update schedules, too often there is concern about possible risks associated with approval, or approvals are simply ignored. Sometimes specifications require ‘approval,’ sometimes ‘review,’ sometimes they mention ‘acceptance,’ occasionally they simply address a ‘record submission.’ Often the concerns are related to the worry that review might ‘direct’ the contractor to a specific means and methods that could be problematic for the owner later if the project runs into delays related to the means and methods employed. Studies show that one of the traits of project success is the involvement of the management team (owner, project controls group, construction manager and contractor management staff) in schedule review. [4] This article discusses the different review and approval options for owners and makes recommendations for the appropriate level of approval, including discussion of the benefits and risks of any approach. The reasons for schedule rejection are discussed, as well as recommendations for requirements that will improve the chances of receiving an approved schedule. Working for a top-50 program management firm, the authors have dealt with the issues of drafting scheduling specifications and schedule approval. They bring an extensive depth of experience in scheduling and schedule review, through working with contractors, consultants, and owners. This article was first presented as PS-3428 at the 2020 AACE International Conference & Expo.

Introduction
Creating and approving a workable baseline schedule in the first precious months of a project is of critical importance. Project baseline schedules (“baseline”) are meant to be used by all stakeholders (owner, owner representatives, contractors, etc.) to compare project progress against the plan. Unfortunately, most “plans” are not agreed upon by all the stakeholders within a reasonable time after the project starts. This causes misalignment between stakeholders and weakens the ability to provide proper analysis of disputes and delays occurring in the early stages of the project. These misalignments (or disconnects or confusions or frustrations) could be solved by agreeing on a baseline early in the project. This article explains the important value of an approved baseline and details options for the stakeholders can use to achieve this key deliverable early in the project or program.

Background
Stakeholders discuss and decide early in the project on key milestone dates including interim and final completion dates. What seldom is discussed by the stakeholders is when the project will be baselined. The “how” to get to these milestones is usually ignored or at least not prioritized. Early in the ‘game,’ stakeholders such as subcontractors, suppliers, inspectors, and management staff rarely have all the information needed to make fully informed contributions. Their contributions typically are expressed in commitment dates so the ‘how’ to get to these milestones is often ignored, or at least not prioritized as preferred.

In this article, the terms ‘owner’ refers to the client and their representative; ‘contractor’ refers to general contractor and sub-contractors within a project.

Unless stipulated in the contract, there is always the question of how long after notice to proceed (NTP) is granted should the contractor submit a baseline schedule for approval. The contractor is usually challenged to achieve submission within the contractually allowed time, and this often leads to a baseline schedule that is submitted late. This might be because the contractor recognizes that once the baseline is completed and approved, their work progress will be subject to monitoring and possibly judged more harshly or intensely by the owner and the owner representatives. This sense of judgment can freeze a contractor’s project controls team and cause shortcomings in the schedule if not acknowledged and dealt with early.

Alternatively, a late submittal could be due to the limited amount of time available to develop the schedule, the lack of professional scheduling staff, or the inability to facilitate a schedule development session with the full construction management team.

The goals of this article include making the case that the owner should require formal submission, provide formal approval, and require the contractor to accommodate any review comments. Additionally, it hopes to challenge the assumption that the baseline is a threat and risk to the contractor and their team. It is important that the baseline is recognized as an integral deliverable which should be championed to be achieved by every stakeholder. A successful baseline process leading to approval early in the project will improve project success.

Submitting a baseline just because it is a contract requirement without much effort is counterproductive. The submission should be scrutinized by the team to make sure it conforms with standard practices and contract specifications.

Only after the baseline is vetted and improved will the project reduce the risk of receiving change orders incrementally during progress due to missing logic, insufficient durations, and/or constructability issues in the baseline.

Review and Response is Important
The baseline schedule is the benchmark against which progress is measured, performance is determined, and delays are analyzed. Review of a project baseline and response is important because it improves the quality of the schedule which increases the likelihood of completing the project on time and on budget. Depending on the size, complexity, and duration of the project, the baseline should be submitted as early as possible so it can be used to manage the early stages of the project when there are likely to be conflicting delays. These early delays tend to fall into one of two categories; owner delays due to quality of the plans, and contractor delays due to the inability to negotiate and award all the early trade contracts on time.

It is common in claims to discover inaccuracies or missing information in the drawings during shop drawing preparation by trade contractors. These are clarified or answered through formal requests for information (RFI) that tend to take time to resolve and thus delay the project. If these were the only delays and the schedule was approved in sufficient detail to analyze and prove the delay quantum and responsibility, the entitlement to an extension of time (EOT) would be clear and simple. But without a baseline in place, the delays are often not identified, and analysis is very difficult without an agreed-upon baseline.

At the same time, the general contractor may run into a delay in bringing on early trade contractors like underground plumbing, causing a delay to construction. With no baseline, these delays just accumulate and corrode the collaborative culture necessary for a successful project. On top of the problems with attempting to analyze without a baseline, the delays tend to be concurrent which are more difficult to analyze and resolve than most isolated delays.

One of the solutions to this quandary is to allow a two-step baseline schedule submission such as owner representatives like the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) specifies. This approach requires an initial project schedule (IPS) due within a fairly short time frame, such as 45 calendar days (cd), and a detailed project schedule (DPS) due within a longer time frame, such as 120 cd. The IPS is required to include all the paperwork and the early construction activities in full detail with the rest of the project scheduled at a summary level, and the DPS is required to be built on the IPS and provide the full project detailed schedule. The IPS can be updated routinely to capture the actual dates and monitor performance until the full DPS is approved, and since the DPS is built on the IPS, if there are multiple updates of the IPS, the as-built data in those updates can be easily imported into and match activities in the full DPS.

Regardless of the solution chosen for schedule submission timing, one good approach is to require a reasonable period of time between the award of the contract and the issuance of the notice to proceed (NTP), using that time to develop the schedule. The issuance of the NTP could be dependent on schedule approval, as long as care is taken to protect the project duration and owner’s responsibility for delays due to any prolonged failure to get the schedule approved.

Besides the issue of dispute and claims prevention, timely and practical baseline schedules have enormous value to any company. The main issues can be elaborated based on the value in professional, psychological, collaborative, and contractual matters.

Professional Value
Building relationships and a professional network in the industry is complicated. Achieving early deliverables on time for a project – especially the project baseline – increases the chances to build stronger and lasting relations with colleagues, consultants, contractors, and owners. The stakeholders will recognize the value of the project controls team with early submission of a reasonable baseline that helps prevent conflict. This makes them more likely to reach out to the project controls team for support because of their professionalism in getting this key early deliverable successfully completed.

Psychological Value
The added value from working on a project schedule with the team early in the project improves the quality of the schedule, based on a study that shows good correlation between better project performance and “detailed review of schedule by the project team.” [1] This also increases the likelihood of everyone getting along, strengthens team confidence and improves owner satisfaction. The likelihood of the project controls team being involved and interconnected with the other stakeholders of a project increases if the team works together early to achieve a comprehensive project baseline.

Collaborative Value
Interaction between the project controls teams (owners, contractor, etc.) to achieve an approved baseline increases collaboration early in a project. It is one of the first key milestones which indicates that the stakeholders are in agreement for contractor and owner actions necessary to meet the scheduled means and methods. A well-designed baseline also helps define the scope and the implementation plan so that all stakeholders understand how the project will be built. This opens the door for better cooperation among stakeholders as the project matures, and also helps prevent misunderstandings over the nature of project deliverables.

Legal/Contractual Value
Most project contracts require analysis of delays based on the critical path method (CPM) schedule and stipulate a sanction if the baseline is not approved within a reasonable time. In addition, not achieving a project baseline approval will increase the likelihood of disputes later in the project. All time disputes will be analyzed based on the baseline and subsequent updates and if those do not reflect the implementation plan and contemporaneous field operation, those disputes will be harder to resolve. The baseline benchmarks this plan and provides the basis for monitoring and analyzing with each update. This risk and the subsequent additional cost are generally reduced if the stakeholders agree on a project baseline within a reasonable time from NTP.

Review and Response Options
Project baselines should be reviewed by the owner’s project control team, who will analyze the received schedule and provide recommendations on how to respond to the submission. In most projects the owner defers to their project controls team’s conclusion for their response to the submission. The following are the most common options used by owners for dealing with the baseline schedule and subsequent updates.

Require Approval and Reconciliation of Comments
Most contracts require that the baseline schedule be reviewed and approved by the owner before it becomes a project document. The achievement of receiving “approval and reconciliation of comments,” also known as “approved with comments” or “approved as noted,” should be the most desired response for a contractor. This is not just because, in a dispute resolution forum, the contractor can rely on the schedule for analysis when the baseline was approved by the owner, but also because they know the owner is supportive of their plan. An approved schedule starts and helps guide the project team on a clear path toward project completion. The achievement of receiving approval of a baseline schedule should not be taken lightly and all comments by the reviewing team should be required to be answered within a reasonable time. This approach has significant benefits to the contractor, as noted in language from a recent online presentation by one of the authors, [2]

• “Schedule approval is the owner’s opportunity to ensure reasonableness, not missing vital scope, positioning for claims, or unrealistic in expectations for owner’s work.
• Approval does not mean that the owner is directing the contractor to follow the schedule, merely that it meets the specification requirements.
• Approval would imply that the owner has agreed to perform his work within the constraints of the schedule, it appears reasonable, and meets owner needs.
• Approval also means that the owner agrees to cooperate with the schedule for any owner responsibilities or coordination with third parties.”

Require Acceptance Only
Unlike the previous option, merely accepting the submitted project baseline is more of an acknowledgement that is sometimes used when the owner believes they might take on some liability if they approve the baseline. Unfortunately, this option removes the owner’s ability to help improve the quality of the schedule and ensure owner tasks are modeled appropriately in the schedule. In some contracts acceptance might be a term indicating only a step in the approval (or rejection) of a baseline submittal process to notify the stakeholders that the submission has been received and is under review.

Require Submission Only
Some project contracts (usually small) might just require that the contractor shares with the owner their schedule and leave it entirely to the contractor to implement their means and methods to complete the project without any owner interaction or feedback. This might be reasonable for small design projects where the owner does not have a design engineer or the ability to support the review of a contractor’s schedule. However, it still creates risks to the owner because of the contractor’s expectations for the owner to perform some tasks in alignment with contractor work. Regardless, it is recommended that the owner reviews the contractor schedule and provides feedback to help improve quality of the schedule network.

Some textbooks caution owners to not require acceptance of a schedule if they do not have the facilities to properly review it, address it as an internal product [5], or treat it as a product that is “sold” [7] when accepted. The act of only accepting a schedule can involve the owner by not identifying planning risks that could have been addressed.

No Required Owner Involvement
The lack of owner involvement in the baseline schedule review is not recommended, and often contributes to the project being managed without a schedule. Being completely indifferent to a project schedule and providing no feedback to the contractor for any reason whatsoever leaves the owner exposed to the contractor’s expectations memorialized in this primary communication and contractual tool. The risk of completing a project on time without owner involvement or a schedule is very high, as recognized by inference in some studies, such as a 2011 study showing that the “most serious risks to project success” are led by “changes in schedule” by 49% of respondents surveyed. [6] Other studies, while not directly addressing approval of schedule, speak to the value of the detailed review of the schedule by the project team, noting in one study, “demonstrated less cost growth.” [4]

In addition, the owner takes on some measure of liability from failing to engage with the baseline schedule, as determined in the “Stanley Miller Construction Co. v. State” case, where the trial court held that an owner breached a construction contract because the baseline schedule was “both logically flawed and hopelessly incomplete” when it included inaccurate float forcing the contractor to spend more labor and equipment than planned to meet project deadlines.

Rejection Options
When the owner specifications require review and approval and the submittal does not meet the minimum requirements, the schedule submittal should be rejected. Rejection options vary according to how closely the submission meets the requirements. The owner or program/construction manager reviewing team evaluates the submission and determines if it considers the contractor’s schedule submission inadmissible, which may be due to a number of issues. Here are the most common rejection options.

Contractual Noncompliance
Contractual noncompliance occurs when the contractor’s schedule does not comply with contract requirements. It could be as simple as an oversight by the contractor’s scheduling team in not reviewing the contract prior to submitting the baseline schedule or it could be as complicated (and political) as the contractor using different requirements and refusing to deviate from them. It is not uncommon for the contract to require a schedule to be loaded with activity-based costs, and this is one of the sources for noncompliance when the contractor fails to load costs.

Occasionally, the noncompliance is due to a failure to meet the phasing specified, incorrect notice to proceed or milestone dates, or missing owner or third-party activities. All parties need to ensure alignment of the schedule and the contract and negotiate a reasonable plan forward as quickly as possible. The goal should be to move away from rejecting a baseline schedule (with a risk of contributing to a project completion delay) and toward a common ground approach of collaborating with the contractor to gain approval. If practical, the owner might decide it makes sense to modify the contract to accommodate reasonable needs by the contractor. More commonly, the contractor will adjust and try to align the developing schedule with the contract requirements in order to gain early approval of the baseline from the owner and team.

There are commonly three categories of reasons for rejecting a schedule submission; technical noncompliance, outdated information, and inappropriateness.

Technical Noncompliance
Most construction contracts spell out the technical details required for the baseline schedule to be accepted for review. Since the baseline is one of the first schedule submissions by the contractor and often required within a short period of time, there is an elevated risk that the contractor will fail to comply with a technical requirement. It could be a simple misunderstanding or lack of knowledge by the contractor. One such misunderstanding might be incorrect software or version of a software used as the scheduling tool by the contractor to which the owner does not have access. Another reason for technical noncompliance might be a failure to involve the appropriate trade contractors in developing the schedule, leading to problems in sequencing or alignment with deliveries. Other significant reasons include failure to meet contract requirements to load costs or resources into the schedule. Understanding the technical specifications and making sure that all the stakeholders are involved in the development and review of the submitted documents is key for a successful baseline project schedule.

Inclusion of Information Not Available at Contract Award
Sometimes it happens that the baseline project schedule is submitted right after a major change or delay has occurred in the project. Anything that affects scope, budget and time would affect the schedule, but the baseline schedule is a model of the contract scope of work and cannot be used to include work not in scope. It may happen that some changes might be on the critical path and therefore affect time of completion for the overall project, but the baseline schedule should still not include non-contract work. However, this is certainly support for the intention to get an approved schedule in place as soon as possible after NTP.

Occasionally, a contractor will include information as part of the baseline schedule which more properly should be handled in a change management effort, or the owner may encourage the same approach. But when the schedule contains changed conditions in the baseline submission, it tends to confuse the definition of original scope of work. Any changes necessary due to new or changed field conditions or requirements should be clearly identified and discussed as changes and not included in the baseline schedule. These changes should, however, be resolved as an updated schedule or time impact analysis as quickly as possible after baseline schedule is approved.

Schedule Not Appropriate
If the submitted baseline schedule does not fit the standards based on industry best practices –even though the contract might not spell them out – a knowledgeable scheduling professional can identify schedules that should not even be considered for review. This could be for missing scope of work, lack of detail, missing or inappropriate logic, schedule development problems such as activity names not clear or duplicated, or even something like the schedule is in a foreign language. Other reasons for rejection include under- or over-development of trade work, high proportion of owner-responsible work that appears to be “forced” onto the critical or near-critical path, just the failure of the schedule to appropriately model the contractor’s means and methods to build the project. This type of failure in the schedule will require the owner reject a baseline submission, and the rejection, just as with any submittal, should be returned as soon as possible to minimize the time for resubmission.

A reasonable approach to recognizing this type of problem is maintaining the purpose of the schedule, to model the contractor’s plan to achieve the contract goals. A good model, built with industry recognized good CPM scheduling practices, should ensure an appropriate baseline schedule.

Benefits to Owner for Approval and Reconciliation of Comments
There are numerous benefits to the owner in achieving early approval of the baseline schedule. With the approved baseline in place and available for updating and analysis, the project is managed by the schedule from the earliest date. This dramatically reduces the risk of early delays that cannot be analyzed without a schedule, and it provides a monitoring tool that helps keep the project on track while providing a basis against which to analyze any contractor caused delays.

The schedule review is the owner’s opportunity to improve the quality of the schedule for performance monitoring and analysis, as well as protecting the owner from project failure and any associated owner risks. It is the best approach for providing comments necessary for the contractor to address deficiencies by revising the schedule. The quicker the comments are provided to the contractor after schedule submission, the sooner the contractor can address the comments. Since the schedule is most commonly on a monthly cycle, if the comments are not received by the contractor early enough to revise prior to the subsequent month’s schedule update process starts, the next update will still contain the same problems and risks.

Risks to Owner for Other than Approval
Rejection is certainly a risk to the project and owner (as shown in the legal citation in the Review and Response Options section above), and repeated rejections tend to erode the relationship between the contractor and owner. As noted in a paper related to baseline approval, “These rejections cause production to be severely affected, inflicts stress on the contractor’s project management team, and places the contractor in an untenable situation.” [8]

Approved as noted is a reasonable and preferred compromise if the contractor is required to make corrections according to the notes or comments, and prevents the lag in schedule approval that happens with rejection. The “as noted” stipulation refers to the review comments supplied, and best practice is for the owner to carefully consider the list of problems with the schedule and split them into two categories. These categories are minor best practice improvement suggestions and secondly deficiencies that would render the schedule less valuable or even risky for the owner.

The deficiencies are listed in the comments that carry the understanding that, if the contractor corrects them satisfactorily, the owner will approve the submission. The other items on the list that amount to best practice suggestions are issues that, even if not fixed, will not cause the schedule to calculate incorrectly or position the schedule so it can easily develop into claims. If the contractor properly corrects the deficiencies, the schedule can be approved.

Approval and Project Delivery Methods
The project delivery method has an effect on the ability to recommend approval since some methods allow work to start without a full schedule in place. With (design-bid-build), it is common to require full schedule approval before construction starts since the contractor has the approved drawings showing full scope. With DB (design-build), PPP or P3 (public-private-partnership), and EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) project delivery, the contractor takes over the design at some fairly low level of scope definition, so the project is not fully designed. In these delivery methods, there must be consideration from both parties to get an approved schedule in place as soon as possible, and a multi-part submission is often the answer. As noted in a paper by Colbert and Forbes, “the CPM Schedule goes through multiple stages – similar to a rolling wave approach.” [3] This provides a detailed schedule for early work with the balance of the work summarized, and then another submission where that summarized work is detailed.

Multi-prime contracts will often have a variety of project delivery methods employed, and CMAR (construction manager at risk or CM@Risk) project delivery requires the CMAR to engage with the development and monitoring of scope definition during design. With CMAR delivery, the submitted schedule should already be developed and coordinated with design to meet the requirements and provide high value. By the time the schedule is ready for baseline schedule approval, it should include the full scope of work with a good explanation of the contractor’s means and methods. Approval should be straightforward unless the CMAR has not fulfilled their role in the stage-gate process of updating and expanding the schedule as the design matures and scope is further developed.

Combining Time and Cost in a Schedule
When the schedule is loaded with costs, it can be an additional complication to submit and approve these schedules, but it is in the stakeholders’ best interests to cooperate and resolve it quickly. The additional complexity of using cost-loaded schedules is due to the differences in the level of granularity needed in the schedules between cost and time. Cost, which is normally invoiced monthly, can often be carried at a higher level than the daily/weekly work activities necessary to monitor performance. This can lead to reduced detail in the schedule if the cost input drives development or perhaps a need to add cost-only activities in the schedule.

The authors have found that if the contractor informs the subcontractors and suppliers that the schedule will be cost-loaded when developing the schedule; then the sequencing and depth of detail from the subcontractors and suppliers will be better and more appropriate. This is due to their need to ensure the ability to bill against their sequencing delivery and installation. For example, without recognition of cost loading, a structure steel fabricator/erector on a passenger cruise terminal provided a very shallow set of activities to cover erection of columns, setting of beams, plumbing/locking in, setting bar joists, and welding deck. However, once the requirement for cost loading was communicated, the same subcontractor supplied activities for six sequences, each with their own columns, beams, bar joists, and deck, in order to ensure that they could bill for each sequence. This addition made the project schedule much better for analysis and monitoring and helped ensure on-time completion.

Developing a common work breakdown structure (WBS) between scheduling and estimating helps with the alignment of the cost and schedule activities. The cost loading can be performed at the work package level of the WBS rather than down at the more detailed activity level which is needed for schedule monitoring.

Following good guidelines for cost loading should simplify the complexity of this requirement and reduce the conflicts common when schedules need to be loaded with costs.

Recommendation
The best choice of the options for schedule review is the requirement of schedules to be reviewed and approved by the owner, supplying deficiencies in comments, and for the comments to be addressed by the contractor and resubmitted for final approval, with both processes performed timely. These steps will ensure deficiency corrections are completed for the next update, so there is a contractual agreement to promote the discussion of the quality of the schedule and provide high quality solutions. The preference is to approve, either in full, or as noted, working with the contractor to address any as-noted comments rather than to formally reject the submission. This ensures that the comments are addressed quickly and builds on the collaborative culture desired. Outright rejection of a baseline schedule should be avoided unless the schedule has so many problems that it cannot be approved without additional risk to the owner. One of the authors developed a paper on how to deal with a schedule submission that cannot be approved for use in this type of situation. The paper discusses an approach that is recommended for use to protect the project and owner when the schedule has too many deficiencies that the contractor refuses to correct, and notes, “It is in the best interests of any project to get an approved as-planned schedule in place as soon as possible to ensure that appropriate planning is done.” [1] That is still a vital point and worth effort to facilitate.

Conclusion
With the right approach and thorough but timely review of the contractor’s baseline schedule submission, it is possible and reasonable to agree to an approved schedule early in the project. Achieving this goal starts with a contract requirement to provide a timely baseline schedule, whether in a single or a two-step submission as necessary. The two-step submission is a useful requirement and the authors recommend the practice as a way to put in place a detailed and appropriate schedule early in the project so accurate performance monitoring and analysis can be provided.

The schedule review should be performed in a detailed, thorough manner, separately identifying deficiencies that must be corrected as well as good industry practices that can help the contractor improve their scheduling. However, these are two different categories and the reviewer must be careful to emphasize the need to correct deficiencies while not using non-deficient practices to delay schedule approval. It is important to require the contractor to address the schedule review comments and correct the deficiencies so the schedule will serve as the basis for completion predictions, performance monitoring and improvement, and analysis of delays. This process of the owner’s team identifying and commenting on deficiencies and the contractor reviewing and correcting them should be done as quickly as possible in order to avoid interrupting the schedule update cycle.

In addition, in keeping with the preferred collaborative culture on the project, both parties should operate in a transparent and open manner, and enter into negotiations when differences arise, allowing for a reasonable resolution in a timely approach. When the schedule just cannot be approved without imposing additional risk on the owner or project, the reviewer should embrace a process to protect the project from the risks, using industry publications that offer good processes. [8] With these efforts, an appropriate baseline schedule can be achieved as early as possible. Each of these elements are important in support of the goal for on-time completion.

REFERENCES

1. Carson, C. “Dealing with Contractors Schedules that Cannot be Approved,” Cost Engineering, Vol. September/October, pp. 4-16, 2013.
2. Carson, C. “Can a Contractor Use Baseline Durations in a Request for EOT?,” Project Control Academy Masterclass, Houston, 2019.
3. Colbert, J. and K. Forbes, “Understanding Risks in Design-Build Schedules,” in AACE International Technical Paper, Morgantown, 2019.
4. Griffith, D. “Scheduling Practices and Project Success,” in AACE International Transactions, Morgantown, 2005.
5. Lewis, J. Project Planning, Scheduling & Control, Probus Publishing Company, 1991.
6. McGraw Hill Construction, Mitigation of Risk in Construction, Smart Market Report, McGraw Hill Construction, 2011.
7. Uyttewaal, E. Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Project 2010, Best Practices for Real-World Projects, ProjectPro Corporation, 2010, p. 693.
8. Zafar, Z. and D. Rasmussen, “Baseline Schedule Approval,” Cost Engineering, Vol. 43, No. 8, 2001.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Christopher W. Carson, CEP DRMP PSP FAACE, is with Arcadis U.S., Inc. He can be contacted by sending email to: Chris.Carson@Arcadis.com

Gino Napuri, EVP, is with Arcadis U.S., Inc. He can be contacted by sending email to: Gino.Napuri@Arcadis.com