![]() Yet on another project I was instructed to use only Finish-to-Start relationships. On one of my projects there was a restriction on what percentage of activity relationships could be Finish-to-Start. I have seen some pretty strange restrictions in contract documents that do affect how logic – and therefore float – can be applied. It is what it is.Īs with any subject there are a few caveats. Why is the contractor starting brick work on the east elevation? Does feeder conduit have to start before branch conduit? But as long as the sequence represents what the contractor intends to follow, the owner has no valid objection. The other half of all the relationships are harder to discern. When the owner reviews a project schedule only the mandatory relationships can be verified easily. The wall has to be built before it can be painted, for example. Mandatory (or “hard”) relationships, on the other hand, cannot be violated. We sometimes call these “soft” relationships because the work could be sequenced more than one way. In my experience roughly one-half of all activity relationships in a project schedule are discretionary. He overlaps work that he feels like overlapping, or makes the work more linear because he wants to conserve resources. And this means the contractor controls the float in the original plan. Certainly there may be some specified sequences in the contract documents (such as for project closeout) but otherwise the contractor decides how to build the project. The contract documents clearly give the contractor ownership of means and methods. Pity then that so many contractors squander the opportunity. So when is this magic moment? It is quite simple: until the original plan is published the contractor has complete control over the float. He alone decides how much float each and every activity has in the project schedule. There is one brief period of time, however, when only the contractor owns the float. Either party can utilize the float while it is still up for grabs. Nevertheless, it is universally recognized that float belongs to the project. Making people unhappy seems to be part of my job. My contractor clients want to own the float, and so do my owner clients. Any hiccups during fabrication and delivery will mean the contractor is blamed for the delay, yet he tried so hard to stay ahead of schedule.Īs a construction consultant I am caught in the middle. Now the contractor has no leeway in terms of procuring the materials. The architect is not happy being put on the spot.Ĭonversely, the contractor submits the shop drawing very early, but the architect sits on the shop drawing for such a long time that all the float is gone. But at one time this path had plenty of float. The contractor ate the float, making the review critical. The contractor waits until the last possible moment to submit a shop drawing now the architect is under pressure to return the shop drawing in a timely fashion. Sharing the float is a fair solution, although there will always be times when it seems rather inequitable. ![]() This fact makes no one in particular happy, but a very smart lawyer once told me that the perfect settlement is the one that both parties regret the next day. But unless the contract documents state otherwise, float belongs to whichever party that uses it first. Arguments over who owns the float in the project schedule are common.
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