Changes in Baseline program

Khawaja,

I believe that MEP schedule is somehow dependent on the Civil/Structural schedule in terms of sequencing of the works. If you are subcontracting the works from the Civil contractor then i supposed you had given them your Baseline schedule, to which you can calculate delays attributable to the Civil contractor. You have no choice but to accept the changes as you cannot hang your MEP elements on air. I suggest that you keep sufficient records.

Thanks Anoon ,

But what I mean is this that ..they have taken back theier program earlier than what they submitted earlier.....and subjecting our activities also to start much earlier than baseline program we submitted,
Hope u got me

Dear Khwaja,

This is your chance you must carefully study the changes and must submit your claim now. To give you some hints you can claim loss of efficiency due to limited acess, also if mobilized you can claim idle time for your direct as well as indirect manpower.

Regards

Ashraf

Ashraf
I mean they are starting their activities now earlier than previously submitted program ....this has result in MEP activities happening earlier also ..they have changed the sequence in a way that some of their activities happening at later satge ...now happening earlier ..for which we are not in aposition to start our work ...and in this case we might held responsible for delays......hope u got me ....

In this case if they insisit you can submit the accelaration claim cost.

Khawaja,

i almost hit my monitor! I suggest you work as a Gen Con!

regards

I believe whatever changes made to the baseline schedule without consent from the clients is considered a direct breach of contract if the contractual documents have stated so.. To be able to know your standing you need to refer it to your schedule specification or any document contract.

For this, most of the clients are using Claim Digger these days, as most of the contractors tend to do some changes in the baseline program.

Cheers,

Raviraj

Hello Ravi,

I am working as clients rep. when making schedule specification i need to mention always that it shall be check by claim digger every update period ...primavera P3 unfortunately doesnt have this capability unlike primavera P5.

I would say that p3 is less capable in doing this job.

Thanks a lot for the information,

I have never used Claim Digger, But r u sure, that P3 doesn’t supports claim digger.

Please revert back

100% sure p3 doesnt have. p5 incorporates in menu

Hello Khawaja,
There are many questions to answer
(a) Did your main contractor approve the Program u prepared on the basis of there initial POW?
(b)Do u have records of such approval?
If yes then surely they cannot really change an approved POW , and surely as ashraf Advised u are entitled for acceleration costs, though i believe Preponing MEP activities are tough more so if there are special equipments which need to be ordered and have a longer production and lead time.
regards
deb

As per the condition of contract, no body can make any changes in the approved baseline programme without official instruction and reasonable reasons .

keep proper record and documentation related to the subject , get the instruction officially , study the impact of the new changes on your original programm for MEP works.

if you foun any negative impact on your original planning then send immediate notification and reserve your right to claim for EOT with the assiociated costs.

Submit your claim with all supporting documents.

If no proper answer go to arbitration and even for court and be sure that you will get your right.
GOOD LUCK

Simple,

Please read FIDIC Clause 14.1, if u r referring to old

And Clause 8.3, if its new (8.3.2 for revisions)

It states about the schedule clearly

If someone changes the programme to reflect what is actually happening on site, then I would say that it is not only reasonable, but someone is doing their job properly! Their using the programme for what they are - management tools, not claims tools.

If the changes now cost someone down the line more money then, assuming they are not at fault, they should attempt to claim the additional cost. Whether they can will come down to reading the contract and finding what provisions allow them to do so.

Andy,

Everybody does that every month, but it is called updated schedule and not changed baseline.

Regards,

Ashraf

Ashraf

I wish they did.

Khawaja said the changes happened after a few months, so was it a change to the baseline programme or just a major change to the programme at some point later?

I am a bit puzzled, so what do the schedulers do for all those hours in a day.

And dont they submit the updated schedule every month with MPR.

Ashraf,

That I guess is the million dollar question when you see the planning on some projects!

I suggest that this thread will be changed to Changes in Current or Updated Schedule. I would certainly agree with that as Current Schedules are full of uncertainties.

However, the title of this thread is "Changes in Baseline Program"....Khawaja! where are you?!!!

Annon,

When has anyone taken any notice of the thread title? Like most things when you start digging, what you first see turns out to be something very different when you know the detail.

Andrew,

Ok I admit nobody bothers with the title. I even remember one of your advices in one of the threads and I exactly followed it and proposed it with my boss but until now I haven’t got any response properly or formally. Believe it or not, that advice (i would not elaborate for obvious reasons), I’m the only one in the company who stood by it! And everybody hated me to be honest, but I have no regrets.

Now, I don’t understand the meaning of the word ethics! but I’m happy honestly.

regards

Anoon,

Ethics, good in theory, but very difficult for some in practice.

We could have a thread devoted to the subject, I’m sure people would come up with a code of ethics that was very admirable.

Real world, money, reputations, jobs on the line, etc, etc. First thing that usually goes out of the window is ethics.

In practice there is a fine line between Ethics and Interests..

IMHO unless you are expecting your materials/equipment to be delivered on a later date only then you can start you work.. otherwise you just have to adjust your programme to show that you are proactively doing the job...

Andrew,

what will happen then? or maybe that’s the effect of over-civilisation? At least it should be included in the Baseline Schedule, to show that you got a so-called Plan!

Still I’m in opinion that no body can make any changes in the approved baseline programme without official instruction and reasonable reasons .
To monitor the progress we can updating the programme in monthly basis.

Ashraf,

You would be correct but you have made some assumptions, the main one being "approved baseline programme". Was it ever approved?

Khawaja wrote: "I have submitted base line program in line with the civil program of works. Now after few months of time Civil contractor have changed logics as per the actual site conditions .."

I’m still not convinced we’re even talking about the baseline programme, or if we are, why hasn’t it been updated in the few months to reflect actual site conditions anyway?

Dear Andrew

Kawaja wrote ’I have submitted base line program in line with the civil program of works .Now after few months of time Civil contractor have changed logics as per the actual site conditions ..which have preponed lots of our activities considerably ...as a MEP Contractor what should be our stand .....if we dont accept these changes now ..what should be the point of argument OR if we accept these changes then at late stage how can we ensure that we r protected against Delay Analysis ..’

Based on the above , if the civil contractor like to do any changes on the programme then he has to issue clear instruction to the MEP subcontractor in order to study the time and cost immplecation on his original programme.
furthermore if MEP subcontractor foud any negative ipact on the base line programe so he is entiteld for EOT as per the condition of contract and no body can force him to accept these changes without setteling his rights.

Ashraf,

Yep, but what are we talking about, baseline programme, updated baseline programme after a few months??????

If there’s changes then the MEP contractor probably will be entitled to something. But what are we measuring those changes against?

"after few months... changed logics as per the actual site conditions".

This tells me there’s a few months of the story we haven’t been told and which could be very relevant to any entitlement the MEP contractor may or may not have.

ulysses,

Claim digger was originally developed to work in conjunction with P3 years ago. Claim digger existed then as a separate software working only on P3 files.

It was only later that Primavera bought over claimdigger and incorporate that into P5.

khawaja,
There are too many unknowns that you have not filled in yet.
Such as the state of completeness of your MEP programe and the way it was tied into the main programe and contractual clauses governing.
eg, did you give also your procurement/delivery times of your MEP preinstallation material/plant/equipment? Detailed design approval? and all other prerequisites prior to your work on site?
Was your programme with above agreed to?
Was your programe tied and integrated into that approved programe with all above? Or your program exist separate from main program?

Thats in addition to the monthly updates that others brought up that you had not answered.

I’m totally agreed with both of you (Kong & Andrew).

khawaja, we are awaiting your clarification in order to advice you accrdigly.

Khawaja

Due to a few undefined and premature things in your question as described Chan and others, it is not feasible to reply you in detail and correctly. These are the basics which need to be clarified to understand the whole situation and respond you accordingly.