Planning for the project

Time scales will be one of the first things a client considers when they think about having construction work carried out. How long will it take to design? When can works commence? When is completion required and what is the earliest that it can be achieved?

Pre-commencement period

Prior to the commencement of works on site many stages will need to be undertaken, including the securing of funding, appointment of the professional team, initial design works, planning approvals, tenders to be sought and evaluated and contracts secured.

Within this period the client's professional advisors will develop the strategy for each phase through to project completion. In many cases the clients desire to achieve completion by a specific date will determine the timescale for each project phase. Completion of sports facilities may be driven by the first event of the season, schools by the start of the academic year and commercial developments by the desire to commence trading by a traditionally busy period such as Christmas. All clients desire the highest standards of work, for the lowest price, in the fastest time. However if time is the main priority compromises may well be made on price or standards.

The time period allowed for the construction works must be considered with some care and ideally the tendering contractors should be given a realistic period in which to plan the works. If the construction period is constrained by the client's desired completion date the client should be informed of the risks involved. The contractors tender should be fully evaluated to ensure that time related issues have been thoroughly considered.

A reasonably detailed construction programme prior to the tendering process will identify the required construction period, provide early identification of areas of risk and will provide an early indication of the requirements for the release of design information. It will provide a good basis from which to evaluate the programmes returned by the contractors with their tenders.

Unfortunately, from experience of disputes and delay analysis, in certain cases not enough consideration of timescales is given during this pre-commencement period resulting in poorly detailed tender documentation and the requirement for ambitious construction periods. In these circumstances there is an escalated risk of delay and dispute.

For obvious reasons cost is a major factor in respect of contractor appointment, however the benefit of giving some consideration to evaluation based on factors such as competent planning and methodology cannot be emphasised enough. Without wishing to sound too cynical there will always be a contractor who will claim that they can undertake the works at a lower cost and in a shorter timescale, particularly in a poor economic climate.

Main contractor's tender programme

A contractor will produce a basic outline programme to assist in the compilation of the tender estimate. This programme will help form views about the resources needed to undertake the works, particularly time-related preliminaries items, such as supervision, scaffolding and major plant items. The planner will usually have some involvement with other related issues including health and safety and method statement preparation, temporary works and 'buildability' issues. The level of detail on the programme will depend on many factors such as the size of the project, size of company, policy of company, nature of job and requirements of the tender enquiry.

Unless the tender enquiry defines programme requirements there is no prescribed format for the preparation of a tender programme. Tender programmes for medium to large contracts will generally be prepared in some detail. Typically the planner will start by identifying appropriate programme activities from the tender documentation and then calculate durations for each activity based on standard or estimated labour and plant outputs. Although such standard outputs are readily commercially available most contractors/planners will maintain their own library based on historical data.

Each project is unique and as such standard outputs will require some adjustment based on experience of the construction process. With the advent of increasingly sophisticated construction methods inevitably input from specialist subcontractors and suppliers in respect of design and manufacturing periods, installation times, attendances and general methodology for non-standard construction operations will be essential. The precise period for the execution of the works cannot be estimated with certainty though.

It is good practice for the first draft of the tender programme to indicate the works being undertaken in an optimum period - that is a period that can be achieved with relatively average outputs and relatively few problems. Using this optimum programme as a baseline, other factors can be reviewed such as any prescribed period in the tender, the level of risk that the contractor is prepared to take in order to secure the work, the risk associated with the terms of contract, liquidated damages for late completion, market conditions, the company's workload and any other relevant factors. These issues are matters that many contractors will discuss at their tender adjudication/settlement meeting and may result in the programme being adjusted accordingly. For example if the rate of liquidated damages are considered as being particularly onerous additional time may be added into the programme to cover the risk.

Subcontractors' tender programmes

Preparation of programmes by subcontractors will generally follow similar lines to the main contracters. It is good practice for the main contractor to provide full details of the required timings on which the subcontractor can base his bid and submit his own tender programme.

In practice, due to time, constraints associated with the main contractors tendering process, unless time allows, subcontractors' tender programmes will not be produced or will not be produced in any great detail.