Introduction
When schedule delays impact important contract milestones beyond key deadlines, a recovery schedule may be the only chance a project has to achieve those milestones. This paper will explore lessons learned from two projects that were significantly delayed and used recovery schedules to achieve project success. This paper will also discuss guidelines from the AACE Recommended Practice 54R-07, “Recovery Scheduling – As Applied in Engineering, Procurement, and Construction.” Essential to recovery schedule success is the decision by project stakeholders to revise the definition of project success as accomplishing only the most important project goals. The recovery schedule is then developed by revising the original schedule logic to allow for additional resources to work concurrently. The use of targeted overtime for critical and near critical activities, as defined by updates of the recovery schedule, is another important recovery tool. The recovery schedule is also used to warn against any future owner responsible activities (i.e. shop drawing approvals, permits, inspections) that could impact the accelerated project. This paper will also discuss recent case law pertaining to recovery schedules.
The RP 54R-07 was developed as a guideline for troubled projects to develop and implement a recovery schedule to overcome project delays. The RP 54R-07 suggests that troubled projects resolve any contract issues that have delayed the project prior to developing a recovery plan that achieve the four overarching principles of fairness, responsibility, involvement and timing. Two real world case studies with similar early critical path delays attempted to develop and implement recovery plans. How these plans were developed and used by the project team was the difference between a successful recovery effort and failure.
The men and women developing a baseline schedule at the pre-bid or bid stage can rarely conceive of the numerous challenges that a project will face while being constructed that can delay the project. Any number of events such as slower than anticipated production by the contractor, labor shortages, design errors, unusually inclement weather, subsurface issues, etc. can cause severe delays to a project. Some projects have contract language stating when a project is delayed beyond a certain amount of time that the Owner may direct the contractor to submit a recovery schedule. Projects without this recovery schedule language may still allow the Owner to direct the Contractor to develop a recovery schedule. It is when a project must overcome these schedule impacts rather than extend the project timeline that a recovery schedule must be developed. Recovery schedules are more than blindly adding resources and working additional hours. A recovery schedule is not a magic wand that will make all the problems disappear on a project but rather is a tool to help stakeholders resolve their problems in a project.