Scott Lowe, P.E., discusses how to document issues on the construction project using letter correspondence
About the Instructor
Scott Lowe, P.E. is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of construction best practices. He is an expert in the area of construction disputes, contracts and scheduling, and is currently Senior Vice President at Trauner Consulting Services Inc., in Philadelphia. Scott regularly conducts seminars throughout the country on a wide variety of topics to include Construction Project Management, Construction Scheduling, and Claims Avoidance and Resolution. He also has published several articles on construction-related topics and is the co-author of the text Construction on Contaminated Sites.
Construction is risky business.And while today’s construction projects may be safer than they were in the past, the financial risks continue to be great.Today’s construction projects are bid under fierce competition with little margin and require the coordination of many trades under demanding conditions and challenging timeframes.Often, everything does not go according to plan and the parties to the construction contract find themselves at odds.
Many of the risks that owners and contractors face can affect construction time.And the cost of a lost day on a construction project may be staggering.Unfortunately, the effects on construction time can be difficult to isolate, identify, and quantify.This is true despite the fact that the construction process has employed “modern” scheduling techniques for nearly half a century.More surprisingly, even though the power and capabilities of scheduling software have increased considerably in recent years, identifying and accurately quantifying construction delays continues to challenge even the best project managers.
The following video is the pilot we shot for the Construction Netcast Series. It is a little dark, but Scott presents some good information.
About this Episode
Join Scott Lowe, P.E. of Trauner Consulting Services as he explains what makes a critical construction delay compensable or non-compensable. The topic comes from the National Highway Institute course entitled, Managing Highway Contract Claims: Analysis and Avoidance. You can learn more about the class at http://www.nhi.fhwa.dot.gov/home.aspx and more about Trauner's training programs at http://www.TraunerConsulting.com .
As a construction project manager assigned to jobsites for over twenty years, one of my toughest chores was convincing my staff to record the daily events of the project, whether big or small, meaningful or seemingly insignificant. My mantra became “If it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen!” As to the “seemingly insignificant” designator, none of us know what the future will bring, and sometimes a small, almost insignificant event can transform overnight into a firestorm of controversy. It is unfortunate that far too many construction projects end up in litigation. The contractor’s best offense and defense is a well-organized, well-documented project file. It’s easy to build the project on paper simultaneously with field operations; it is quite another story to reconstruct the project record from veritable shoeboxes full of documents at a later date. My career has evolved from field operations to consulting, and now more than ever I see the damage that nonexistent or poor project documentation can cause. Please believe me when I tell you this: properly documenting your project on a daily basis is far less painful and expensive than paying consultants and attorneys to do so after the fact!
Frequently, the advice given regarding proper documentation is to “document everything” – better safe than sorry. While such advice might be appropriate for some, for most it really doesn’t answer the question and is probably not practical, anyway. Essentially, the documentation prepared on the project needs to support your view or perspective of project events. For example, if it is your belief, based on your experience and observations that the subcontractor is mismanaging the job and its workforce, it is not enough to state this belief. There must be credible documentation in the file that supports this view. There should be daily log or diary entries that record your observations regarding the sub’s performance – the number of workers you see standing around, reading the paper, playing cards, sleeping, etc. Pictures are just another way of documenting your view. For this example, you should take pictures of the subcontractor’s staff asleep, or playing cards, or reading the newspaper. You should also date your pictures and attach a written description of the dated photograph.
About the Instructor
Scott Lowe, P.E. is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of construction best practices. He is an expert in the area of construction disputes, contracts and scheduling, and is currently Senior Vice President at Trauner Consulting Services Inc., in Philadelphia. Scott regularly conducts seminars throughout the country on a wide variety of topics to include Construction Project Management, Construction Scheduling, and Claims Avoidance and Resolution. He also has published several articles on construction-related topics and is the co-author of the text Construction on Contaminated Sites.
As children, a snow day was a dream come true. But for contractors, severe weather can be a nightmare, causing project delays that may turn into costly claims and even business-ending litigation.
Each region of the country has a distinctly different climate that produces varying challenges for the local construction industry. While weather is unpredictable, , knowing how to define and deal with weather related issues will help contractors and owners avoid a potential avalanche of disputes.
The following article will cover typical requirements for proving entitlement to a time extension due to weather, and the importance of understanding your contract’s weather-related time extension provision.
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Construction is risky business.