What the owner's reviewer checks, how monthly updates keep pay apps moving, and how to read the GC's schedule before accepting the dates. Written by the Primavera P6 schedulers at CPM Pros, who build these schedules for general contractors and trade contractors.
Getting the baseline accepted, keeping the monthly update moving with the pay app, and what the owner’s reviewer is actually checking.
Why pay app and schedule update percents disagree, what the owner's reviewer does about it, and how CPM Pros builds the SOV and the P6 activity list from one breakdown.
Deadlines, P6 format, duration caps, float, cost loading and monthly updates: what the construction schedule spec (Section 01 32 16) asks of a GC, explained by CPM Pros.
What owners check in each monthly P6 schedule update, the mistakes that get updates rejected, and how CPM Pros keeps general contractors' pay applications on time.
What owners' reviewers check in a contract-required Primavera P6 baseline under Section 01 32 16, and how CPM Pros gets small GCs' baselines accepted the first time.
Most rejected baselines fail the same seven ways. Here's what the review letter means, what to fix first, and how to resubmit so it passes.
How scheduling services are priced, the five factors that move a quote, what should always be included, and when outsourcing beats hiring.
PDB schedules aren't traditional CPM with a new label. The two-phase structure, GMP pivot, and overlap of design and construction create milestones and risks a conventional schedule won't capture.
The 5 criteria evaluators use before price is opened.
Reading the GC’s schedule before the dates become a commitment, and keeping the record that protects your time.
What electrical, mechanical and civil contractors should check in the GC's schedule before accepting the dates. A CPM Pros checklist: durations, access, logic, float and gear.
How civil contractors use the baseline weather allowance and monthly updates to turn lost weather days into an approved time extension, from the schedulers at CPM Pros.
A GC compressed an electrical sub's rough-in from 45 to 28 working days while holding completion. How the schedule record proved constructive acceleration — CPM Pros.
What a monthly P6 update should tell you, what a passing DCMA score does not, and the risks that hide in clean-looking schedules.
A passing DCMA score isn't the same as a defensible schedule. Six additional checks every serious peer review runs.
Twelve patterns that hide in clean-looking schedules — and how to catch them before they become claims.
Why most monthly narratives describe instead of analyze — and the 10-point structure that fixes it.
What fails, why, and how to fix each one in P6.
What OPMs miss in monthly P6 updates — and what they should be looking for.
How independent review complements strong internal project controls teams.
Time impact analysis, windows, collapsed as-built, concurrent delay: which method holds up, and what the XER shows that the Gantt hides.
SmartPM's Windows Half-Step splits schedule slip into experienced delay and planned impact. What CPM Pros checks in the P6 updates before that result supports a claim.
Half-step analysis splits schedule slip into progress and revisions. What contractors need from it to support a time extension, and what owners need to review one. CPM Pros.
Concurrent delay isn't a method. It's the concept that cuts across every method and reduces more otherwise-meritorious claims than anything else. Definitions vary. Jurisdiction matters. Get it right.
Collapsed As-Built asks what would have happened without specific delays. Intuitive, clean, and controversial - every step involves judgment calls that determine the result. Use with discipline.
AACE MIP 3.4 splits a schedule update into progress-only effects and non-progress revisions, so analysts can tell whether the critical path slipped from actual performance or a rewritten plan.
TIA is contract-mandated, widely used, and often misapplied. It works prospectively for EOT requests and change orders. Stretched into retrospective forensic use, it accumulates serious problems.
Windows Analysis divides a project into time slices and measures delay in each, producing a chronological narrative that respects how the critical path actually shifts. Here's how to do it defensibly.
Which delay methodology survives cross-examination — and why methodology selection matters before retention.
Method selection determines what your expert can prove. Know before you retain.
What looks normal in a Gantt but is obvious in the XER.
Where the critical path really runs on data centers, hospitals, pharma, rail, airports, nuclear and permitted work, and who has to own each piece.
How a AUD 1.2 Billion Hospital Lost Nearly Three Years, Finished Through Arbitration, and Became a Textbook Study in What Hospital Schedules Actually Break Over
Airports never close. FAA, TSA, CBP, and the airlines all have a say in what gets built and when. Here's what owners and GCs each have to own to open the terminal on the day it was promised.
A pharma facility isn't done at substantial completion. It's done at PAI readiness, after C&Q, IQ, OQ, PQ, and process validation. Here's what owners and GCs each have to carry to get there on time.
Data centers don't miss schedule because construction is hard. They miss because utility interconnection, switchgear lead times, and Level 5 commissioning each carry floors nothing can compress.
Hospital schedules fail because complexity spans regulators, ICRA, MEP density, OFCI equipment, and activation. Here's what owners and GCs each have to own - and where their schedules collide.
Nuclear projects aren't done at substantial completion. They're done when the NRC authorizes fuel load, after every ITAAC closes and every NCR resolves. Here's what owners and GCs each have to carry.
On environmentally constrained projects, the critical path runs through permits, consultations, and work windows - not through the trades. Here's what owners and GCs each have to own to stay on schedu
Federated governance, federal funding cycles, NEPA, utility relocation, and live-service constraints define public rail schedules. Here's what transit agencies and GCs each have to own to deliver.
A single day of RFS slip costs more than most schedule reviews. The math hyperscale owners can't afford to skip.
Power availability is the defining constraint on new hyperscale builds. Current lead times, demand pressure, and the planning errors that cause missed RFS dates — with downloadable reference paper.
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