As construction scheduling professionals, we’ve all developed project baseline schedules. We’ve also worked with our subcontractors to get their input for the schedule, often with less than stellar results…..
This seems to a common problem.
It seems that many subcontractors are hesitant to provide much detailed information for our schedule development. Other subcontractors provide their own CPM schedules, which are often very good schedules.
We really need all our subcontractors to provide some basic schedule input for us to best develop a realistic baseline schedule. Why are some subcontractors wary of providing basic durations and sequencing for their work?
Perhaps it is because they didn’t break their bid out in a way that allows them to easily provide detailed activities for their portion of the project? Can we help them break down their summary budgets into a workable WBS level and help them develop activities in support of these deliverables?
Many projects develop a baseline schedule with input from the subcontractors they have bought and use estimates for any remaining work activities. These get adjusted after the specific trade is brought on board.
A best practice is to bring the subcontractors together and develop the basic work breakdown and sequencing as a project team. Meetings with individual players can be used to detail out work as needed. Another practice is to request a schedule from each subcontractor and vendor and integrate them all into a baseline schedule. This is fine, but you still have to coordinate the individual trades for sequencing and coordination.
As I work with contractors to develop the project baseline schedule, I often wonder if our industry could do a better job of standardizing this process. AACEi is a great source for best practices in all things cost and schedule related. But I doubt many general contractors or any subcontractors ever utilize this resource. PMI and CMAA describe what the process should produce. Most general contractors in our industry find a way to produce a schedule for our projects, but are they the best representation of their plan to execute the project?
Are there any processes you use at your company to make this part of your schedule development more efficient and more accurate?
Are there any best practices we could agree on for helping our subcontractors and vendors understand what information we need and why we need it?
I believe we can do a better job of managing our subcontractor and vendor participation in the project baseline schedule development process.
I’d love to hear what you think!
Please visit https://conschmanservices.com to learn more about Construction and Schedule Management Services, LLC
Please visit my LinkedIn account to learn more about me.
Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP