Largest extension of time

A good candidate: Cologne Cathedral which required from 1248 to 1880 - i.e. 632 years. Responsible was the city of Cologne.
Good example for forensics?

True. There is also Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona, but seriously?

Chris

It was a serious project. Result is one of the most impressive buildings.
OR, what do you understand by "serious"? Please explain.
Dieter

Serious is perhaps the wrong usage of words. What I meant is within the last 30 years for example. I do apologise for the confusion.

Chris
Maybe you realized: this question is too general to receive a focused answer. Extension of time can be due to different reasons and different consequences. Maybe accounting forgot to write the final invoice, or it was due to an environmental issue, or due to technical difficulties, or lack of tracing and updating the schedule, or.... Or focus on the consequences: Did a company go bankrupt or was it in the public sector, where the citizens have to pay and not those who are responsible.
What was your interest with this and other general questions you asked? Give some more information, please.
Regards
Dieter

The longest project ever i worked in it was in UAE and the original duration for the contract was 365 days also the contractor has submitted his claim for EOT 797 working days with the assoicated cost.
the delays events caused by meny parties like the contractor;sown dalays, delays from the services authoriyies, delays from the employer and delays from the engineer(consultant).
still this case is under evaluation, discusion and negotiation between all parties.

I suspect it might be the current world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai tower.

Has anyone ever seen so many floors completed without any cladding on them??

Whether they get an EoT is open to doubt, but there is no doubt its going to be VERY late due to Schmidlin going out of business.

Any other takers?

The firm I used to work for lost Berj tower to Schmidlin et al. I recall teh tendering manager at the time claimed to have told the client "once Schmidlin bite it over this job coz they priced too low, we’ll be down the road waiting. Then you’ll pay a proper price"

I should call them and find out what happened...

I worked on BOC HQ in Beijing from 1998 to 2000 as part of the cladding team. That job completed 2 1/2 years late. The final cost was "unknown" according to the architect (or was it "don’t ask" ... I forget) but anyway in the region of 300Mill USD. However, I did get a glance at the main contractor’s programme during the project, It was written in pencil on 1 sheet of A3. 2 milestones and one activity

Start working on BOC
^ Work on BOC
--------------------------
^ Finish BOC

It was a wonder of simplicity...

Who did the cladding on the Bank of China, James?

Sounds like a Gartner programme.

Dieter,

Did the Cologne Cathedral Contractor [or were there many] get their entitlements?

David
The owner didn’t fulfil his side of the contract - lack of money. So the works didn’t really continue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_cathedral
Regards
Dieter

Nieman, you’re right, Gartner did do the BOC Beijing but it wasn’t their plan that I mention (and I wasn’t planning for them, I was part of the site management). The programme I mention was produced by the General contractor who was, for all intents and purposes, the Chinese government. tbh they were at the whim of every other Chinese govt department and so any actual "project control" was so far out of practical reach that the only solution was probably a 3 activity plan. and hold your breath.

fortunately we were on a fixed date tied (rather than milestone tied) payment schedule so got all our base contract monies before we’d done the work. Extras (not to mention 2+ yrs prolongation), now that was a different matter....

Chris,

Sydney Opera House should be an interesting cause study. Do not know much about the project besides that it; is one of the most photographed buildings in the world; is technically complex; was massively delayed; was massively over budget; involved a high profile consultancy (Arup).

Regards,
Larry

Dubai Mall !!!
Dont ask i’m working on it right now !!

Hi,Gerome Atkin

since we can consider Dubai Mall and Dubai Tawoer are one of the biggest progect in the meddle east .
Can you brief us about the construction progaram and the toatl delays with the main reasons of delays.

The project and analysis is still on going, so cant really talk about the claim until it has all been presented to the client. I hope you understand this and I would never talk about a claim until it has gone though the full process and is known in the public domain anyway. The information I am working on is very sensitive.

I can tell you we are working on Time Impact analysis and window analysis.
The way we are doing the claim is taking slices of time (at the moment I am working in 2005) looking at all the PMI’s and other changes in 6-week windows. I am told it is one of the largest claims to date with over 4000 PMI and various other changes, which will affect the final end date and any outcome of an EOT.

To answer your question with Dubai projects there are a few reasons why they are late and why there are so many claims going on.
1) Contractors are putting together unrealistic programmes and prices for the project in the first instance. These are badly linked, non resourced and mostly unworkable. This is due to the large amount of software jockeys they have over here who do not know there arse from there elbow when it comes to tender planning, running plans and updating progress correctly.
2) The client in many cases approve the sub contractors for the various packages of work, this is ok but they always submit a programme which goes against the main sub contractors programme (for instance a building being built north – south the sub contractors programme east – west) it just not going to work, what is more stupid these get approved from the client!!!
3) Design – tender designs are not what is going to be built. The design changes along and the extra amount of works, which these generate, are amazing. The artist impression of the building from time of tender is completely different from what is actually built as are the drawings. The owner does not vision the building from a drawing, he waits till it is built and then walks in and say “change that” this of course is abortive works and has a knock on affect – but they don’t see this, they still want it for the same money & time. It really is cave man stuff !! makes me laugh, but they have the money to do what they want.

The main thing, which I want to know, is about the structural loading of the buildings. The piling is done before the contractor gets on site normally, but the piling is done so the original building / design. The building by the time it has finished is far bigger, far more complex and has far more shops and WEIGHT than first thought off !!! But these thing don’t seam to worry people out here !!!

As for the building of Dubai I still maintain that it is poorly managed, in the offices and out on site. People are being brought in for price rather than for knowledge (modern day slave labour). Thus leading to a massive tangle of crap at the end. But that is what keeps people like me busy !!!

Hope this helps

I worked for a project with original duration 30 months and we get EOT 90 months. The cost of EOT can’t be determined for lots of purposes.

To all

In my knowledge up to today larges extension of time ( EOT granted or not / delay) has happened to "The British Library Project" in UK which is 5 years delay and Sterling pound 400M over budget.