Its interesting that it is widely held in this thread that the programme is approved.

Since a rather nasty accident in the UK where a method statement was approved by a consultant and life was lost due to what the judge felt to be basic science and in turn the consultant was held partially liable, consultants have, where english law is the basis of the countries law abbrogated the responsibility for approval.

Simply put very little is now approved by Consultants, often the highest level of "approval" is no comment at this time.

or follow comments no need to resubmit

clearly if your engineer wants you to increase float i assume that this is probably on his approval activities or information provision activities. Resist the tempatation if he has no authority under the contract to make such a request. Follow what Mr Ness has said about the claims if he insists.

I would be very interested where programmes are still being formally approved.

Joe,

I sympathise with anyone having to deal with a capricious Engineer!

As Jose says, I would stick to the wording in the Contract. Or at least as much as you can

If your Contract has the usual 3 options that Jose refers to, then your status would appear to be ‘approved with comments.’

If – as is more likely – your Contract is silent on the matter, I think that the same principle would apply; in other words, he has approved the programme, but only if you carry out certain modifications to it, and – by extension – he is unlikely to grant approval until you comply with his comments.

Of course, you may argue that his ‘comments’ are unrealistic, particulary where they are inconsistent with the Contract documentation, such as the Specification. In this case, get him to commit his comments (including his ‘conditional’ approval) to paper, so that you then have a basis to claim (or at least protect yourself) at a later stage in the event that things begin to unravel!!

If the Consultant refuses to commit his ‘conditional consent’ to paper, it’s a sure sign that he knows within himself that he is on shaky ground. If he does not commit his requirements to paper (particulrly if these requirements are contrary to the Contract), then you have no written instruction and you have no need to comply with his ‘requirements’.
Alternatively, you can confirm his verbal instruction and proceed on that basis, but give notice of your intention to submit a Change/Variation Order for additional time and/or costs on the basis of his insruction, if this is appropriate.

One other question: does the Engineer have to approve the Programme within a given time frame? If so, and if he has not commented on it within the due time frame, then your Programme may be deemed to have been approved in any event.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Stuart

www.rosmartin.com

Hi Joe

Normaly the approvals/comments must follow what is writen in the contract:
Very often:
1. Approved
2. Approved w/ comments
3. Not approved.

You should stick to the contract.

Increasing the float ? your contract works program does not have a critical path ?

Under such circunstancies it would mean to perform shorter then contractualy agreed (immediately would be cause for claiming acceleration costs / shortening period / etc)

Best regards
JMFrade

Hi Andrew,

I agree with you 100 percent.

At least it gave us confidence that irrespective of the politics within the project management team, we planners will do our job: prepare baseline schedule and monitor the progress of baseline schedule.

Hi,

Alex, I agree with you regarding the statement "baseline schedule ... reaches the Approved/Agreed with comments stage". At this phase the comments are minor and will not have any impact to the schedule. Generally, this is good as aprroval of the schedule.

Andrew comment "the agreed program is always taken (and normally is) the contractors intended sequence of work..." is interesting. This maybe true but on what basis in Contract Law that the statement is correct or got precedents considering that the other party of the contract did not approve/agree but only commented on the submitted/re-submitted schedule.

that what makes our job most difficult,
u feel confused about being fair if that will put u against the contract terms which means against ur company.

because ur company hired u to protect them as much as u can. ( not to be fair-their point of view) .

i had a similar situation once when the subcontractor was pretty sure that there will be no penalties or delay fine applied upon him by the end of the project ,
and i’m sure that all of u guys now can imagine what was the impact of this on his performance during the life time.
the project ended up 5 months after the contractual finish date.

so which way would u rather to go through during the project life time, the contract or the system set out by ur company?

Regards,

Charleston,

The start, finish, sectional completion dates are contractual and are directly taken from the contract documentation. The program is an indication as to how the contractor intends to build the project, but only an indication. Within the contract dates the contractor is usaully free to build the works however and in what ever sequence he wants as long as he complies with the contractual dates. This in effect is recognising the contractors right to manage the works as he wishes subject to the constraints of the contract. The programme therefore is not an actual contract document unless expressly included.

Hi Andrew,

I beg to differ with your statement “the reason the program is not made a contract document is actually to protect the client …”

There is always a plan or program in all organization. Planning is a function of management. In project management, planning is the most important function since the inherent nature of project management makes it mandatory to have a plan, to have a start and finish of project, to have a program or plan of action on how to start and finish the project

It is for the interest of the client to have a start date and finish date in all projects. Generally, the client incorporated the start and finish date in the contract. The client did have a program to start and finish the projects.

We have to agree that for a project to be successful, a plan or program must be in place. A baseline schedule must be in place to monitor the progress and to know where the project is heading. The project manager including the project management team may act irresponsibly, play politics, derelict in their duties or loss touch with their management training and belief, etc. by not approving a baseline schedule, but we planners must be strong and find ways to have a baseline schedule. This is the only way to insulate us planners from the dirty politics of project management to do our job as planners and produce all our deliverables.

The issue at hand is how the baseline schedule will become a contract document considering that there was no approval of baseline schedule. There must be some court rulings that establish precedent on how the submitted and commented but not approved schedule becomes an approved schedule without the word “approve” and part of the contract document.

charlestong-joseph, is correct but the conclusion is:
The client never issue a letter of acceptance of the contractor’s submitted program but as u said they use it as a baseline during the construction and they update this program for monitoring and performance measurement purposes.

The point here is, Updating that program and using the %’s of completion for measurement or directing letters for the contractor or highlighting them in the progress meetings is not considered as an approval for the baseline????

Hello,

Every project is unique. Let us consider this kind of scenario. The contractor submitted a document (schedule) and the client acknowledge receive of the schedule. The client did not approve the schedule. The client also did not reject the schedule but commented on the schedule for resubmission for the contractor to incorporate the client’s comment. The process of submission and re-submission continue during the concurrency of construction activities. The contractor was able to comply with the comment made by the client however the client was also able to come up with new and reasonable comments every time the schedule was submitted for approval. During the progress of the work, the contractor and the client used the submitted but commented schedule. All performance evaluation and monitoring of progress including updating, look ahead, etc was based on the submitted schedule.

For case study purposes, the project was delayed and the contractor file for EOT, claims, entitlement, etc. Due to complexity, the contractor will hire a forensic analyst/claims specialist. One of the forensic/claims specialist activities is to prepare an impacted schedule showing the events, instruction, etc and how it affects the work schedule. But now the question is which baseline schedule to use.

As planner, it is very frustrating to get stuck up in this kind of project management environment. It is for this reason between planners (contractor and client) it is very important to arrive at an approved schedule as early as possible. In this way a baseline schedule must be agreed and put in place for the project management team to monitor and compare progress.

The contractor prepares the schedule and submits to client/consultants for review and approval. The client/consultants accept, review and keep for record the schedule but remain silent on approval. Can the schedule become a contract binding document?

Since the schedule is not approved and only accepted for record, does the contractor solely responsible for any changes occurred during the construction period i.e. changes in design. If construction work is delayed due to the design changes can contractor apply for EOT? If the changes is not major and client/consultants assume it can be absorbed in the construction period definitely contractor won’t be happy because of loss time.

Client/consultants and contractor can involve in lengthy argument and let say both parties bring the case to arbitration but if the schedule as a part of the contract document is not approved does it valid in court. How to justify the validity?

What we need to emphasis here is does the acceptance for record by client/consultants can be considered as approval or not.

Regards.

And sorry, forgot to run spell check

bill

nothing...