Overview

In this article, we'll review a real life case study for a delay claim that I reviewed and provided the recommendation for. The case study format will allow you to see what the Contractor was claiming, the analysis performed to review their claim, and whether or not the Contractor was awarded any time or compensation based on their claim. The parties involved will be hidden along with the project name as the information is sensitive in nature.

The project is for a middle school and includes the renovation of several existing classrooms, construction of a new gymnasium, new library, renovation of an existing administration building, and updates to the sitework.

To give some perspective, the longest path as shown in the Baseline Schedule began with setting up interim housing during Phase 1, followed by Phase 2A which consisted of constructing the new Gymnasium and Library. This was followed by modernizing a classroom and finally removal of the interim housing and restoration of the site. Also worth noting is that the data date in the Baseline Schedule was set to June 12, 2017.

Review of the Contractor's Claims

The Contractor submitted a TIA (Time Impact Analysis) claiming that they were delayed by 267 calendar days due to design changes to the door frames. These design changes resulted in the ordering of new door frames which allegedly held up installation of the door frames and ultimately delayed the project by 267 calendar days.

TIA # 01 - Door Frame Design Changes

Claim Overview & Contractor's Methodology

The Contractor claims that due to structural revisions to the door openings, the project was delayed by 267 calendar days. The methodology used for reporting the delay was to insert the delay events into the Baseline Schedule file to show the net affect on the overall completion date.

When adding the delay sequence to the "pre-impacted" schedule, the Contractor constrained the first activity in the sequence (IMP650: RFI #129- Openings for Frames & Doors) to start on or after January 16, 2017 with no predecessor relationship. See below for the "post-impacted" schedule as reported in the Contractor's TIA.

The image above shows the four added "delay" activities with the first constrained to start on January 16, 2017. The overall schedule shows negative float of 267 calendar days.

Methodology for How I Reviewed this Claim

For most delay claims, we'll follow the same process for determining the validity of a Contractor's claim. Disclaimer: delay claims are unique and often times aren't as cut and dry as the flow chart below would indicate. However, the questions asked in the flow chart act as a good starting point to help determine whether a delay claim has merit.

Once we go through this process and determine that there is a legitimate delay claim, we need to apportion the delay and determine which parts are compensable and which parts are non-compensable.

In my analysis of the Contractor's claim, the Owner was responsible for the change, the timeline of events was accurate, and the delay sequence was tied to the appropriate "base scope" activities. However, when we look at whether or not the correct "pre-impacted" file was used, we find that the delay started in January 2018 and the Contractor used a file that was roughly seven months prior to the delay event to model the impact.

Why does this matter? - Let's take a quick break from our review to see why:

If we insert delay events into an older schedule file, we aren't accounting for any delays that may have happened between the old schedule and when the delay event started. Also by using the wrong schedule file, sometimes the delay will look like a critical path delay when in fact it's not. This is because the critical path can be "forced" through the delay event if an older schedule is used.

Let's look at a quick example of how using the wrong pre-impacted schedule can result in different delay values. The image below shows a sample critical path as shown in our example Baseline Schedule.

Let's say that the Contractor claims that due to soil issues, the foundation work wasn't able to begin until June 1st, 2017. They use the Baseline Schedule file as the basis, and insert the soil issues activity by constraining it to finish on June 1st, 2017 and have it drive the start of the foundation work. The following graphic is what they show in their claim:

Their "post-impacted" schedule shows that the schedule was delayed from August 2017 to early-November 2017. If we were analyzing this in a vacuum, we might incorrectly assume that that Contractor's claim is accurate and award them a compensable time extension from August 2017 to November 2017. However, if we were to use the correct "pre-impacted" schedule file, which in this case might be the April 2017 schedule update, here's what we may find:

The April 2017 schedule update shows that prior to the delay event starting, the Contractor took longer to mobilize. Also, it looks like the site preparation had slipped prior to when the soil issues began. As a result, their April 2017 update shows that the project had already been delayed to early-October 2017. By inserting the delay event into the April 2017 schedule update, we find that the schedule was really only delayed from October 2017 to November 2017.

Ok - Let's go back to our Contractor's original claim of 267 calendar days knowing that we need to use the correct pre-impacted schedule file to assess the delay:

Going back to the Contractor's claim that the design change to the door frames delayed the project by 267 calendar days, we can see from the example above why it would be important to choose the correct pre-impacted schedule file. In their claim, the delay started in January of 2018. As a result, I chose to use the December 2017 schedule update as the pre-impacted file.

The December 2017 schedule update shows that the schedule had already been delayed to January 20th, 2020. At a minimum, we can determine that out of the 267 calendar days claimed by the Contractor, 217 days are not attributable to the door frames because these delays had already existed in the schedule prior to the design change.

We then can insert our delay activities into the December 2017 Schedule Update to see if there is any impact on the completion date. After inserting the delay activities into the December 2017 Schedule Update, we find that the alleged impacts have no affect on the overall completion date. As a result, we can determine that the alleged delay event is not a critical path delay and therefore, not excusable or compensable.

Summary

The Contractor submitted a delay claim of 267 calendar days based on design changes to the door frames. To model the impact, the Contractor used the Baseline Schedule which was roughly seven months prior to when the delay event started. This resulted in the critical path being forced through the door frames which made it look like the door frames were critical and delaying the project. After using the correct pre-impacted schedule file to model the delay, we found that the design change to the door frames had no affect on the completion date. As a result, the delay claimed by the Contractor is neither excusable or compensable.

Additionally, the December 2017 update shows that the schedule had already been delayed by 217 calendar days. These 217 calendar days are unsubstantiated and are considered progress delays by the Contractor unless they can demonstrate otherwise.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below!