Fragents and Change Orders

Question

I'm new to P3. I need to manage a large 2 year public
works building construction schedule in downtown Los
Angeles, with numerous and frequent changes to the
schedule due to change orders, RFI's etc. Of course, these
changes result in increases/decreases to cost and time,
which need to be monitored and dealt with as part of the
overall project. Some say that fragnets are the best way
to insert these changes into the schedule. Some say
fragnets are problematic. I have no experience with
fragnets and I want to get off on the right foot. What
have you project managers and project engineers found most
effective for inserting and managing change order and RFI
items?

Answer 1

Nat:
Thank you very much for
your response.
Your
explanation of fragnets was very useful. I will make a
point of saving and reusing repetitive groups of
activities. In my case, SOMD (slab-on-metal-deck) is
very repetitive. Also, exterior building finishes such
as plaster (exterior sheathing, lath, scratch coat,
brown coat, cure, finish coat, cleanup). Interior
finishes activities are also often identical from
floor to floor.
The issue with
RFI's is usually not so critical. I mentioned 1200
RFI's but relatively few impact the schedule and must
be coded in. But it is more than 48. In my case, the
most common reason for entering an RFI into the
schedule is when the
consultant/Architect/Engineer/State Agency exceeds the
contractually agreed upon time limit for response to a
design-related RFI, or his response is irrelevant
requiring a second round of RFI's to resolve the
problem (revise and resubmit for title-block
exceptions, for example, happens frequently). <br
/>
It is easy to ignore these delays,
and recording them in the schedule can really irritate
the consultant, but when they become a habit, the
cumulative impact on the schedule can be significant.
Therefore, I need to be able to track these RFI delays
effectively within the schedule. Of course, an RFI
always has a number that is tracked inside Expedition
as well.
The bigger problem is
Change Orders. As you know, when the Owner wants
something added to the work, or a problem in the
design results in an increase in the scope of work
(there are many other possible reasons of course) a CO
is requested. As a general rule, most change orders
contain both a cost increase as well as a time
extension. This time extension is the problem,
because, especially on public works projects, the
Owner/CM does not want to grant time an extension, and
even when they do, they will only grant it when it
impacts the critical path, and only after there is no
float remaining (you will see why this distinction is
important as you read further). The critical path
condition makes sense, but the idea that my float is
the Owner's to eat for his CO work is grating,
especially when facing potential LD's. <br
/>
To top it off, some Owners/CMs insist
that all time delays be dealt with at the end of the
project, when the actual time delay resulting from a
CO can be calculated, instead of simply estimated, as
is common practice (corresponding language is inserted
into the CO to that effect instead of a defined time
extension). My position is that if they refuse to
grant a time extension based on an estimate, then the
cost given in the CO, which is nothing more than an
estimate, should also be replaced with T&M, and
the budget be damned. Needless to say, that position
has not won me many friends in the trailer across the
way.
You might suggest that we
should refuse the extra work if a time extension is
not granted up front. If we did that, they would hit
our bond in a heartbeat. A contractor's lot in life
seems to be to make lawyers (Deo volente, may the burn
in hell) wealthy.
In the case
of the Owner/CM refusing to grant time for
non-critical path CO's, my position is that, while the
CO work may not be on the critical path this instant,
in many cases, the critical path can change
dramatically, sucking CO work into it that was
previously separated from it by weeks. That very thing
has happened on a school project located in a major
city we are doing.
The project
has extensive tubular secondary steel at the exterior
of the two buildings. This tube steel, ranging in size
from 4" diameter to 20" diameter curves around, and up
and down, the exterior of the structure. I do not
exaggerate when I say that it is more complicated than
a roller coaster. I will send pictures if you are
interested. It supports curvilinear LG framing, which
in turn supports a combination of plaster, brick
veneer and metal panels. Very phantasmagorical stuff.
Being a complicated 3-D arrangement of rigid steel,
the architect's drawings were incomplete, (we should
have expected that) and changed frequently (4 times)
during fabrication, resulting in detailing problems
and a two month delay in erection. Lots of unforeseen,
fit-scribe-cut-repeat of long, heavy, curved, twisting
pieces of long steel hanging from crane hooks has been
required.
We have recovered
most of that time, but only by doing a great deal of
out-of-sequence work.
As you
can imagine, this mess generated a ton of CO's, but
the Owner would not agree to grant time extensions
until the end of the project, and even then, only on
CO's that are provably on the critical path. When
combined with electrical changes impacting utility
buildings, cable pulls, elevators, manlift and even
exterior finishes, and then with added off-site work,
topped off by submittal-review delays by State
agencies, the critical path has flapped around like a
flag in the wind, with CO's going in and out of it. In
many cases, this means that a particular item of
ongoing CO work has delayed the critical path for a
period of time, but not for the entire duration of the
CO work. So calculating the exact impact of the CO
during the period it was on the critical path has not
been easy.
I anticipate there
will be huge disagreement about these calculations at
the end of the project when we have the "come to
Jesus" time/money resolution meeting with the
Owner/CM.
BTW, the CM always
insists that CO's be dealt with as fragnets, but that
doesn't always make sense because the nature of CO
work is often one-of-a kind, not repetitive stuff. But
he has fragnets on the brain, it seems, so we call
them fragnets to humor him.
<br
/>Anyway, as you can imagine, tracking the dynamic
(vs. static) effect of CO's on the schedule has been
difficult. I am almost tempted to try calculus methods
to calculate time consumed over time (if you get my
meaning). Any experience analyzing schedules using
differential equations? Someone must have done it
before....
Right now I am
using activity codes to track them, but I am wondering
if there is a better way.
<br
/>
I have other projects, without the
same delays, but similar Owner/CM mindset regarding
CO's
Now you know the long
story. Any suggestions?
<br
/>Stan