I suspect I will shortly be asked to produce a programme to aid the project team on one of our live projects in demonstrating the effect that a Mechanical and Electrical sub-contractors programme delays have had on other trades and on the completion of the project as a whole.

As part of the sub-contract enquiry and agreement we had them programme out their works and forward them onto us for including in our internal target programme, so we do have a record of the programme which they agreed to work to. The subcontractor has asked us (main contractor) for an extension of time, I believe that we will be not only rejecting the extension of time claim but also looking to recover some monies from them for the delays caused to the rest of the project.

At this stage we will be trying to avoid the situation being escalated at all, and trying to settle the issues through negotiation between the project team and the subcontractors representatives. The programme will be used merely to demonstrate the delay that the subcontractor caused and to support our rejection of their claim and then further negotiations. In reality it is unlikely that the subcontractor delays will push us beyond our contract completion date as we have mitigated their delays by changing logic, bringing in some trades earlier and increasing manpower, although obviously this is all come at a cost, and also used up the float which we had against the contract programme.

What I think I will need to do is using our As Built Data and our target programme, which includes the subcontractors programme which they agreed as part of their subcontract, create an 'As Planned' baseline and compare it to the 'As Built' records. This will show what they should have done against what they have actually done but it is difficult to assess the impact their delays had on following trades, as in the 'As Built' programme many of the following trades start earlier than the as planned logic shows, due to our mitigation.

So what i am coming out with is several dates for the subsequent trades, for example if 'Board second side of stud partitions' in one area cannot happen until after the completion of 'Electrical containment in stud partitions' has been completed, for 'Board second side' I have:

• As Planned Start Date
• Impacted As Planned Start Date (by which i mean when the activity should have started, using the as planned logic but incorporating the delay of the preceding electrical containment activity)
• As Built Start Date

First question, do I need to show all of these dates in order to demonstrate how the subcontractor delayed subsequent trades or am i overcomplicating it?

Second question, is this the correct way of going about demonstrating the delay that the subcontractor caused?

I have had no specific planning or programming training outside of construction experience and being able to use the software, i have tried referring to the Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol but this refers more so the Employer / Contractor disputes and did not seem to fit with this particular problem.

Many thanks for any help and best regards, Robert Hughes.