Retrospective Critical Path Delay Analysis

The project consisted of the construction of new Council chambers and refurbishment of existing buildings. The contract value was £3.1m and the finally certified value was £6.25m. The contract duration of 56 weeks was prolonged to a duration of 108 weeks.

The project was considerably delayed due to a number of issues including lack of completed design, incorrect groundworks reports, subsequent considerable additional groundworks and late design information.

The architect awarded an 8 weeks extension of time out of a claimed 52 weeks of delay. The contractor accepted its own culpability for 16 weeks of delay due to a leaking roof, leaving 36 weeks unexplained delay.

RM was appointed by the Main Contractor to perform a retrospective delay analysis in order to establish the true entitlement to time. RM reviewed the project records, including 12,000 emails. The contractor’s as planned programme was amended to make it suitable for analysis but with great care so as to avoid criticism by other parties in the method employed.

RM demonstrated an entitlement to 25 weeks of delay out of the 36 weeks. The final account negotiated settlement is proceeding (September 2010) on the basis of the RM delay analysis.