Get with the programme

The meat of the NEC programme – planning – is the action that precedes the scheduling of the activities. It provides the ‘order’.

Construction method statements – unlike those hijacked by health and safety representatives – list resources to be used and the time required to complete the activity. These provide the ‘timing’.

The demand on the skills base and overheads of a business are evident. Works must be sequenced to provide continuity for the trades. Planned breaks, where the on-site presence of a subcontractor is not required, may need to be reconsidered when compensation events are being evaluated.

Contract requirements

Before an order is placed, enquiries should be made about what attendances each subcontractor requires. Subcontractors have been asked traditionally to accept the main contractor’s programme as being the ‘contract’ document.

Subcontractors will need to be conversant with all the foregoing requirements so they can empower the main contractor, if they are to schedule the works realistically, and in accordance with what the contract dictates.

It is a well-established principle that the contractor is entitled to plan and organise his work in whatever manner he chooses, as long as he proceeds in a ‘regular and diligent’ fashion towards completion.

Sectional completion and key dates serve to limit this ability. The works contract data should be analysed to see whether the employer seeks to limit further the contractor’s ability to plan.

Provision for risk

Risks are not ‘uncertainties’. There is a statistical probability, however remote, of a risk occurring. The programming of these identified items requires skill. It means all the resources that contribute to the successful conclusion of an activity must be identified and analysed for any inherent points of risk.

Line of balance

Line of balance, or elemental trend analysis, is a useful programming tool when working on large, repetitive projects such as a local authority housing scheme or a multi-storey building.

The finished programme is plotted against two axes of a graph, and activity durations and relationships are represented by vertical or sloping rectangular bars (parallelograms).

Computer analysis, re-analysis and updating enable cost optimisation and resource allocation to be achieved easily, and suit the NEC contract

This is useful when progressing the works because it becomes immediately obvious when corrective action needs to be taken. Determining the optimum solution can be difficult because of the effect that factors such as site overheads, labour costs and the extent to which the activities are out of parallel will have.

Gang sizes can also be difficult to balance where there is a risk of a lack of work continuity. However, scheduling and controlling material flow can be much easier. The optimum solution is often affected by site layout, and it is not uncommon that the two are planned together.

Network planning

Sections of work are scheduled and then presented on an arrow diagram as a linked series of activities and events. An event marks the beginning or end of the available activity period.

The most familiar technique of network planning is critical path analysis. This has the advantage that simple or short-term projects can be analysed by hand. More complex projects are best analysed by computer.

Computer analysis, re-analysis and updating enable cost optimisation and/or resource allocation to be achieved easily, and is most suitable, therefore, where use of the NEC contract is envisaged.

When using networks it is essential to study the operations sequence carefully. This will lead to a closer understanding of what the project requires.

Planning, analysing and scheduling are separated when using networks, which allows greater focus on planning.

Multi-project planning

At any time the subcontractor will be working on a number of different projects, each with its own labour demands. It is essential that he plans ahead to ensure the demand on his resources can be met.

To do this, the accepted programmes’ labour histograms are entered into a master chart and resourced accordingly. As programmes change so the histograms will fluctuate. This will provide an essential tool for business planning as it will demonstrate where shortfalls in workload will need attention.

Charts of this nature are instructive when claims for loss and expense are considered. They demonstrate clearly the effects on the business of any labour that has been retained on site by unproductive working.