Page 185 - Civil Engineering Project Management, Fourth Edition

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Programme and progress charts
how any consequential delay to the contractor can be avoided. However he can
only make direct contact with nominated suppliers or sub-contractors before
the contractor places his order with them. After the contractor has placed his
order, any contact with a nominated sub-contractor or supplier must be via the
contractor, unless the contractor permits otherwise.
There may be other matters with respect to the programme the resident
engineer should look into. In some cases the employer may require access
through the project area for his other works. Or perhaps work by the con-
tractor must necessarily interrupt services which the employer relies upon,
such as electricity, drainage, water lines, etc. There may therefore be a strictly
limited time which the employer can tolerate such interruption; and he may
prefer the interruption to occur at some particular time of year rather than
another.
The influence of the weather may be an important factor to take into account
when examining a contractor’s programme, especially if the contract involves
substantial earthwork construction. The resident engineer may need to discuss
with the contractor where he thinks the programme should include optional
strategies according to weather. He should be able to advise what sort of meas-
ures could be taken to minimize the effect of weather.
The resident engineer has to appreciate that a contractor must ensure his
programme for construction fosters efficient, economic working. Once he has
brought men and machines onto the site he will want to use them continu-
ously until their tasks are completed. Also he will want their output to be as
near as possible to their maximum. Hence the resident engineer must appre-
ciate that, on occasion, a contractor has to ‘make do’ with what plant and men
he has on site, because the expense of bringing in more to do a ‘one off’ job
is too great to be economic. The resident engineer can only interfere when he
is certain that some method proposed by the contractor will result in unsatis-
factory work or some unacceptable risk to safety.

14.4 Watching and recording progress

From the agreed programme it is useful for the resident engineer to draw up
a list of dates by which different operations must be undertaken as shown in
Fig. 14.1. If there are several contracts let for the construction of a project, the
list will be essential for co-ordination of the work of different contractors. It is
useful as an overall guide for checking if the contractor is keeping to time and
as a reminder what future actions need to be taken.
Figure 14.2 shows a typical bar chart for a single structure. The length of the
broad bands show the time duration expected for each operation; these are
coloured or hatched in as work proceeds to show how much of an item of
work has been completed. The solid black lines indicate the actual time periods
taken to achieve the quantity entered in the broad band. Figures can be written
in to show the quantity of work done by the end of each week, as compared