Article #015 Creating Bullet-Proof After-the-Fact As-Built Schedules Using Construction

Site Daily Reports

One of the greatest challenges that faces an organization who is involved in submitting or defending an extension of
time or delay claims, is establishing the as-built schedule specially when the periodical schedule updates are not
present or not accepted by the parties of the contract. Having an as-built schedule that can be accepted during
direct claim negotiations, arbitration and courts, the schedule must be fully aligned and linked to the project’s actual
progress.

Some of the Project Management Information System (PMIS) solutions like PMWeb provides a robust and
comprehensive approach for developing the as-built schedule. To achieve this, the Daily Report module will be used
along with PMWeb document management repository. The first step will be to import the approved baseline
schedule into PMWeb to ensure that all activities that need to be updated are available for the update. The second
step will be to identify the documents and records that will be used to establish the actual start and finish dates for
the project schedule activities. The third step will be to create a day by day history of what has actually happened on
the project using PMWeb Daily Report module. For each daily report, there will be a need to attach all supportive
records, documents and pictures to verify the reported progress. The third step will be to generate the report that
will compare the as-planned dates from the originally imported schedule dates and the as-built dates captured in the
daily reports.

Establishing the Baseline Schedule

Usually for each construction project, there will be a detailed integrated project schedule that the contractor has
submitted for review and approval to be established as the project baseline schedule. The project schedule is usually
created using Oracle Primavera P6 or MS Project. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended that before using this
schedule as the baseline or as-planned schedule, to review and analyze the schedule to ensure that it does not have
any serious errors or missed information that makes using it as the as-planned schedule invalid. Therefore, it is
highly recommended to have a pre-defined checklist to review and analyze the schedule. PMWeb custom form
builder can be used to create the desired checklist similar to the sample checklist partially shown below.
After reviewing and analyzing the project schedule and correcting or adjusting any errors that need to be formally
documented and approved, the project schedule will be ready to be imported into PMWeb as the Baseline Schedule.
The schedule import function in PMWeb allows importing the activity ID, description, WBS level, early start and
finish dates, actual start and finish dates, percent complete, duration and total float values.

Setting the Document Management Repository

Since the main objective is to create the project’s as-built schedule, PMWeb document management repository will
have folders created to match the project’s duration. In other words, a folder will be created for each week, for
example W01, W02 and so on, where all project documents and records that will be needed to create the as-built
schedule will be scanned, uploaded and stored into the folder that it belongs to. Those documents could include
daily reports, meeting minutes, submittals, request for information, site instructions, permits among many others.
PMWeb allows creating unlimited number of attributes and user defined fields to capture additional important
details for each uploaded document.
Capturing Project Email Communications

Today, there is a growing trend for using emails to communicate important project information and events that
could be needed when it comes into creating the as-built schedule. PMWeb email integration module allows
importing those emails into PMWeb project email folder. Those emails will become available for the team creating
the as-built schedule in linking those emails to the relevant daily report.

Capturing the As-Built Schedule Dates

A daily report will be created for each day of the actual project duration to capture the actual schedule progress
data. The layout of the timesheet tab of PMWeb daily report module will be configured to capture each activity that
had started, progresses, finished or put on hold and percent complete for each activity that had progressed during
that particular day. The description and notes text fields will be used to add the needed information relevant to that
activity. In addition, PMWeb provides 10 additional user defined fields that can be configured to capture additional
information on each progressed activity. For example, one the fields will be used to identify the status of the
reported activity.
Should there be a need to capture the actual resources, labor and non-labor, hours spent against each progressed
activity on that particular date, then the resource field name, actual hours, hours type as regular, overtime or
weekend and cost account number need to be displayed which are available by default. Otherwise, the daily report
is ready to be used to capture the actual schedule progress. The user can select the activity to be updated from the
imported schedule list, then against each activity, the description of the completed works and any additional notes
to be added. It should be noted that the daily report could have more than one entry for the same activity if
different type of work was done on that particular activity for that particular date. Of course, this will be more
important if there was a need to add resources details spent against activity.

Additional data like weather conditions and other user defined fields can be added to the daily report. In addition, all
supportive documents and records that were used to capture the activities progressed during that date needs to be
attached to the relevant daily report. In addition, emails imported to PMWeb project email folder will be linked to
the daily report module to provide the needed justification for the reported actual progress dates. When all
completed, the daily report for the current day can be copied to capture the data for the next day.

To expedite the process of creating the project as-built schedule, different project team members can be assigned to
create the daily reports for the different project WBS levels. For each daily report, the WBS level will be assigned for
which the as-built schedule data will be limited only to the activities that are part of that WBS level.
Reporting the As-Built Schedule

The data captured in the daily reports will be used to provide the information for the as-built schedule. The as-built
schedule report will list all daily reports for every WBS level showing the activities that have started, progressed,
completed or on hold. In addition, it will show the reported percent complete for activities in progress although this
is not a must. In addition, the report will provide the progress details relevant for each activity on each relevant date
listing all issues that could have impacted an activity progress. The report allows selecting the daily reports that are
specific for each WBS level, activity or group of activities as well as for a specific period.

Comparing As-Planned and As-Built Schedules

With both the as-planned and as-built schedule dates are now available, the project team can create a report to
compare those dates for each activity. The comparison report will immediately identify the variances between as-
planned and as-built dates. The report reader can drill down to the activity and to review the details of the actual
reported progress along with the details of reported delays and disruptions that could have disrupted the activity
progress.
Visualizing the Difference Between As-Planned and As-Built Schedules

Although a bar-chart report can be created to compare the as-planned and as-built schedule dates, nevertheless, the
project team might opt to have different type of reports to compare as-planned and as-built dates. For example,
projects that have repetitive type of activities like pipeline, metro, railway, highway and high-rise buildings, the
project team might be interested in having the comparison between as-planned and as-built dates based on location
and not WBS level.

The chart below which was created using Turbo Chart shows a comparison between as-planned and as-built dates
for a metro project. The report shows that the tunneling from Station 1->4 (going left to right) have started about a
month late and had a slower rate than planned because it was severely impacted by poor soil at a location between
station 2 and 3 thus finishing 3 months later than the as-planned dates. In addition, tunneling from Station 7->4
(going from right to left have started about 2 months late and had a slower rate than the baseline thus finishing 4.5
months later than the as-planned dates.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant
with more than 35-year service record providing project management and controls
services to over 100 projects with a total value in excess of US $5 Billion. Those
projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and
Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries,
Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly
experienced in complete project management including project management
control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention,
risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training and
business development.

Bassam is a frequent speaker in topics relating to Project Management, Strategic

Project Management and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years he has lectured at more than
350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and South America. He has
written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were
featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management
Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a
certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning
and Scheduling Professional (PSP) and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost
Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).

Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation,
George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and
has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business
School, London, UK.