Schedule Review is a Construction Scheduling procedure focusing on the items the Construction Scheduling Engineer should examine, performing a detailed review of the schedule Submission.
An example of schedule review is verifying compliance with the contract specifications and maintaining a logical sequence between activities.
Schedule review should be performed on at least two levels and possibly on a third level for deeper analysis of change over time.
The levels of Schedule Review
The FIRST level performs a number of schedule checks to confirm its integrity and compliance with project specifications.
A project schedule review could be conducted over baseline schedules or schedule updates. Schedule review should include a check for basic information in the schedule, in addition to a more detailed probing of its contents.
Examples of basic information would be the project name, start/finish dates, and number.
More detailed information can be reviewed such as constraints, critical activities, milestone activities, budgeted cost (for cost loaded schedules), completion date, and any specific contract requirements such as maximum allowed duration for activities.
In case of schedule updates, a second level of schedule review should be performed.
Comparing the schedule update with a previous schedule update or to the baseline schedule helps to identify changes, anomalies, and errors.
Systematic change detection as a part of the schedule review process may greatly enhance schedule quality.
Review of basic changes such as added actual start or actual finish in addition to advanced findings such as increased cost without an increase of earned value is expected at that level of schedule review.
The third level of schedule review is to review the schedule update trends.
Identifying the trends of different key metrics can be invaluable in accounting for the project’s future situation.
How to do a Schedule Review?
The short answer is to hire a professional (internally if it ends up with a discount over time - or a consultant).
This is different from just your standard owner’s rep or resident engineer also - as many don’t have knowledge and experience in this area.
You want to specifically hire someone with detailed experience in CPM Schedule Reviewing.
They really are a worthy investment for any construction project and may save you heaps of dollars.
To put you in perspective - it’s not uncommon for simple scheduling mistakes (overlooked by inexperienced schedule reviewers) to cost a project tens of millions of dollars.
Delays, claims, and inefficiency could really add up and land you or your client in a very sticky financial situation.
Professional Reviewers are really the ounce of prevention to look to prevent a mountain of financial hurt.
But I can’t afford a CPM Professional!?
As tempting as it is for me to say “then you can’t afford to build” - which is correct for the owner and major stakeholders - there may be employees here who have been put in the situation of having to do this process without knowledge, and without the financial ability to outsource this.
In which case for you, we have developed an AI technology to do this for you.
While not as good as your own consultant, this technology is made to do at least 80% of the work and save you from major issues - and also help you to become massively more efficient and avoid landing your project in delays and to put a barrier between you and claims.
Fittingly, it’s named Claim Cracker.
Claim Cracker is made to take schedule files and automatically run analysis and create a schedule review for you in a few clicks
If you need a schedule review done on a budget - Click Here to check it out!
As for how to maximize the benefit you might take from your consultant, then look here:
How to Aid in Schedule Review
Your Schedule Professional (internal or external) should be provided with copies of all required contract documents, including plans, specifications, estimates, and schedules.
They need all the documents to fully understand what is included in the project.
The Construction Scheduling Engineer reviews project schedules to provide input and feedback on the entire schedule and provide comments on the entire schedule including comments from a Constructibility point of view.
You should also look to make sure that your project is running the best technologies throughout. Why is this important?
We want to make sure that there is only one, actual version of events at the fingertips of the entire project.
This might greatly aid your schedule reviewer, as they now might not have to waste the time it takes to go through and 1. Extract info from various software and sources, 2. Make sense of it and find out what is actually happening, 3. Decide on how to run the review with all this in cohesion. -
All of which is on YOUR (/owner’s) dollar.
Give your project and upgrade - and make sure your professional is up to date also - hopefully driving down your billing and increasing the accuracy (and helpfulness) of your report
Schedule Reviews
Schedule Reviews are an essential aspect of project planning and management, one you simply cannot afford to skip over.
You might be excited to build and have everything finished, but without a proper schedule don’t be surprised if your haste lands you in major delays, claims, and wasted budget - actually setting you far behind the planned finish date.
Thanks a lot and take care,
Niall
The Project Cracker Team
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