Insurance is an important dossier that co-exists in any kind of contract which acts as a mitigation measure when exposed to risk and possibilities. This ensures the Contractor will continue to indemnify the Government, its agents and/or its servants from and against all actions, claims and liabilities arising out of acts done by the Contractor when executing the scope of works under the Contract. The importance of insurance is discussed heavily in the Contract vis-à-vis the Conditions of Contract Clauses 14, 15 and 16. These conditions pertain to the definition of indemnity, insurance against personal injuries and property damage, and indemnities to the Client (hereafter can be expressed as ‘Government’ and used interchangeably) in respect of claims by workmen. The act of continuously indemnifying the Client is dire and takes precedence. This requires the joint names of the Client and Contractor to insure against losses and damages as per Conditions of Contract Clause 18.1(a). This leads to reimbursements or claims against such losses as stipulated in Conditions of Contract Clauses 15.5 and 18.3. This goes beyond the Contract as Condition of Contract 56 in regards to surviving rights still requires the client to remain indemnified and harmless, and vice-versa.

This issue needs a prudent approach as it is indirectly cited in Conditions of Contract Clauses 9 and 10 which are related to good practices and adherence to contract requirements. Although these clauses do not directly and stringently affect the Conditions of Contract Clause 51 where the Contractor defaulted the Contract, it renders a scenario where the Contractor may breach several clauses 51.1(a) in a certain amount of time and defaulted the Contract subliminally which I will reiterate in the subsequent paragraph which is pertinent when it comes to a possible breach.

It is essential to differentiate the difference in nature between insurance and performance bonds or guarantees. The performance bond is related to the performance of the contractor when it comes to the Works which is tangible since there are ways to measure and quantum as long as time is of the essence. Performance can be measured financially and physically which encompasses quality, time and money. Insurance on the other hand handles uncertainties and risks which cannot be foreseen beforehand and mitigated timely. It is usually related to health, safety and the environment. Hence, insurance is procured and the policy will describe the coverage of the Works and Completed Works which will indemnify the Client from all sorts of claims, liabilities, breaches and actions arising out of acts done negligently or accidentally by the Contractor and others.

There are many types of insurance when talking about the construction industry. Consultants have their own Professional Indemnity Insurance and lenders (or creditors) have their own set of insurance. The Contractor usually is required to produce policies for Contractor All Risk (CAR) and Workmen's Compensation (WC) before the contract binding process can be done. In certain cases, work may not be permitted to commence and this can lead to the event and consequences of default by the Contractor. This happens when insurance is not available and work has yet to start after two weeks from the Date of Possession. Contractor can be terminated based on Conditions of Contract Clause 51.1(a)(1)(i).

A question was posed to me recently about the expiry of an insurance policy and the implication on the project and the Contactor. The PWD Form 203 and its variants explicitly stipulate in a few citations which link to this question. Nevertheless, not many memorise and try to understand this fifty-three-page document. There are two clauses which cite such default or failure in renewing their insurance policy, namely; Conditions of Contract Clauses 15.3 and 18.2 which are verbatim. The passage goes as follows; “If the Contractor fails to effect or renew such insurances as are necessary under this clause, the Government or the S.O. on its behalf may renew such insurance and pay the premium in respect thereof and deduct the amount so expended including On-Cost Charges (calculated by applying the ‘Percentage of On-Cost charges’ stated in Appendix 1 to the premiums paid), from any money due or to become due to the Contractor under this Contract, and failing which such premium shall be recovered from the Performance Bond or as a debt due to the Contractor.”

Premium will skyrocket over time and we do not need to be rocket scientists to understand this. Hence, the premium may increase exponentially. In some cases, Contractors are unwilling to pay for the new policy. Then again, Conditions of Contract Clause 18.1(b) the Contractor must produce the policy upon expiry and it is his responsibility to bear the excess. What if the Contractor cannot or unwilling to pay for the policy? This leads to Conditions of Contract Clause 18.2 coincides with Condition of Contract Clause 33 where money is deductible for On-cost charges. The following are verbatim passages cited from the latter clause. “The Government or the S.O. on its behalf shall be entitled to deduct any money owing from the Contractor to the Government under this Contract from any sum which may become due or is payable by the Government to the Contractor under this Contract or any other contracts to which the Government and Contractor are Parties thereto. The S.O. in issuing any certificate under clauses 28 and 31, shall have regard to any such sum so chargeable against the Contractor, PROVIDED ALWAYS that this provision shall not affect any other remedy to which the Government may be entitled for the recovery of such sums.”

So what is the plan when shit happened? Well, as a person who did a lot of tactical planning work for mega projects, there is an exit clause which can be optimised and manipulated to the Contractor’s advantage. That is something I am not ready to share at this moment. There are manoeuvres which are required to enable and activate such an advantage.

There are so many types of project management models. Which one is the best? None is ranked as the best. Every model has its advantages and disadvantages. Before PMBOK 7, earlier versions of PMBOK may not cover this particular topic. Every model and tool available are supposed to be customised to fit the purpose and objective(s). Which principle covers this particular statement?  All twelve principles of PMBOK 7 cover everything when I state that no particular tool is suitable apart from adaptation and that does negate the logic of any previous and obsolete models. Obsolete models are the foundation of newer adaptive project management models.

Different industries or even different stakeholders of similar industries may have different project management models but that does not affect the end objective. In every project, the nexus to the whole process is guided by the contract act where time is of the essence. When time is stipulated as so, it places productivity and outcome on a relative scale. Hence, time remains a constant in any contract. Available tools are used to navigate other factors and variables to fit time as one of the many objectives as well as in creating distinct value between two parties.

Which principles in PMBOK indirectly affect the project management model to be used? Envisage visions and objectives are propelled forward by the level of complexity of one contract undertaking and cater for the desired holistic or systemic thinking that shall be utilised in navigating through the processes involved. Apart from that, risk avoidance and mitigation measures also play important roles in determining the right model and approach to control and measure progress over time.

For that reason, the scale or magnitude of the project will determine the initial project model. For fast-tracking, supplementary, customised, repetitive or iterative-like processes, the best way going forward would be using the Agile method. Nevertheless, Agile and its variance which promotes different philosophies or methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban and Lean have their advantages as it provides another edge which is deemed as valuable to stakeholders and end-users. But this does not necessarily mean it is much superior compared to the traditional waterfall method. For master planners, agility and the use of agile methodology are complementary to traditional methods when a highly complex requires thousands of tasks. Each task can be monitored through scrums when a task is considered a sprint. There is nothing wrong with doing so, rather it is helpful when each task has its preset backlog which can be used as a measure to monitor short-term progress. Vice-versa, a set of completed work or deliverables deemed as part of a small group of Work Breakdown Structure can form a scrum for clients when estimating a project duration of a similar nature.

At the end of the day, only capitalists will tell you these models are different and try to sell you the idea of the superiority of each model or methodology. This is false. A good master planner will use any kind of tools at his/her disposal to deliver a project on time. When it comes to planning, one has to remember my only quote; “garbage-in, garbage-out, laugh-out-loud” or GIGOLOL. Project management involves artistry which your lecturer, your sponsor, your coach and your senior cannot provide you through books and videos. You need a mentor who is willing to reach out to you and bestow you with hands-on direction every time you are lost. 

Project management is indeed a lonely wilderness for many. On the contrary for master craftsmen, it is an exciting dungeon where you can be evil when you have a complete cookbook for all kinds of sorcery. We are necromancers and we communicate with the dead, so to speak.

A few days ago, I posted this exact photo which provides a birds-eye view of my discussion when I am coaching some engineers to do the above-mentioned work in order to mitigate the delay of a mega road project especially when it involves around seven remaining bridges for a work package. Why are productivity and duration essential to mitigate a delayed project?  There are five elements in project management which we often refer to as the 5Ms. The 5Ms consist of material, manpower, money, method and machine. The failure to establish the right productivity and duration for these elements leads to unrealistic duration, chaotic execution or delays. Hence, these elements affect the duration and risk associated with the whole execution.

Productivity is the work output that is achievable in various scenarios and conditions. If one is familiar with this, the typical duration should be established using the following formula; 

[optimistic + 4 Likely duration + pessimistic] / 6 [Equation A]

This established uniform value will generate a normal distribution at the end of the whole project period and the controlled percentile would be P20, P50 and P80. P80 is best as it follows the Pareto Rule. There are certain exceptions when it comes to this rule for certain issues which I will discuss in the future. For the advanced level, the Gumbel Distribution method can be applied when the two extreme ends of the duration generate a better rendition of the overall distribution curvature. The outcome would not be a typical normal distribution or beta curve. This may lead to other types of curves such as lognormal or Weibull or even Laplace distribution. So it is important to understand and assign the most realistic scenario for computation purposes. 

The three conditions of duration are optimistic, likely and pessimistic. This has to be generated based on observation of productivity at the site or fabrication yard as shown in my sketch. Why sketch? If you are trained under my internship, everything follows one golden rule, “80% on paper, 20% on execution.” This means no MS Project or Primavera P6 until one completes their SBM, especially the productivity and the duration. This observation divides productivity into a few categories; 

• a) when everything goes well (100%), 

• b) when it drizzles (60%) 

• c) when it rains ( 20%)

• d) when encountering uncertainties (varies %)

• e) when money or cash flow starts to experience a hiccup (varies %)

• f) when the construction method is wrong (varies %)

When these are tabulated in a productivity chart, the initial duration can be derived using Equation A or it can be derived using Gumbel distribution when assigned scenarios are considered. Once all duration and productivity are considered, these pieces of information shall be included in the work schedule. Since the schedule is for a turnaround or as part of the mitigation effort, the true value can be indicated especially when talking about items (d) and (f). Item (d) is essential as it forms part of the extension of time and it should be realistic where P80 to P100 should be the basis after scrutinizing the best effort on the construction method.

When discussing construction methods, two elements should be considered when trying to do risk burndown activities or strategies. PERT in scheduling software will allow the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation to choose the critical path of the overall project. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of MC is not completely true without the assignment of risk possibilities. This ties to schedule sensitivity and criticality when running a few other analyses such as scatter plots and tornado charts. It is recommended to set up a risk register and incorporate it as part of the task sensitivity analyses when there is no risk burndown task(s) that can be introduced. If the initial method of construction is scrutinised and found to have better alternative routes and/or other tasks can be executed parallel to the hold-point or idling time, these are considered risk burndown activities. For alternative methods to clear a task, one can introduce the Bayesian Network with weightage which will affect the duration based on possibilities. Nodes are assigned and the longest route can be determined. This shall be the basis of the mitigation plan where the shortest route would be the target execution to mitigate delay and the longest route should be the basis for applying an extension of time.

These are reasons why duration and productivity are essential in planning, monitoring and recovery work for each project. Most of the time, when I inquire about these from a planner, they fail to provide and hence fail to verify their schedule. At the end of the day, the organisation has planned to fail and therefore, the project is doomed to fail.

A mitigation plan is an essential work schedule which provides detailed activities which reorganize and a turnaround program which will ensure delayed works are able to be rescued. This is an example of a mitigation plan.

For this particular plan, there are ten procedures which I usually want from a contractor. With these ten procedures, at least half of the problems will be resolved in the shortest period of time, excluding works involving other stakeholders.

2. Issues should be addressed and scrutinized before a mitigation plan is drafted. Once all issues are segregated, then the proposed mitigation works can be planned forward. *This includes all issues that are closely related to all possible default conditions of contracts, EOT and Loss and Expenses. This will be the basis to determine whose delay.

3. The Schedule Basis Memorandum (SBM) is the key reference point when deriving a schedule. It must be proven successful and based on localised capability. Adopting the wrong SBM will lead to irrelevant targets and objectives. 

4. Next, a measuring sheet needs to be derived based on the remaining work and the cost of the contract. It must be tallied to the BQ and be broken down based on WBS to Level 6 or 7. All values must be measured accordingly, where possible, taking-off quantities will take precedence before the rest. *A measuring sheet should be developed to reflect the pertinent deliverables of a task. E.g. For a concrete beam, the measuring sheet shall be divided into reinforcement bars, concrete, formwork as well as resources. These are then weighed based on the cost in the BQ with a fraction of it (maybe 30%) to reflect the cost for resources. It depends on the derivation of each rate and is flexible.

5. SBM provides anticipated resources' productivity. This must be measured at the site and achieve the actual output as planned. Everything is then recorded in the resources' productivity sheet for the next procedure. *A planner should allow for trial productivity monitoring to ensure this is achievable with minimum supervision.

6. Resources distribution for each task or gang depends on items 4 and 5. This will ensure the resource allocation is sensible based on work and productivity. The amount of resources can be determined as remaining work over productivity over a period of time. This may not be accurate but hold on to the value since it shall be revised over trial and error to ensure it is well leveraged over a period of time or requires crashing for a certain period of time when the resources histogram requires.

7. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Level as mentioned earlier will determine a series of tasks that are documented and tracked accurately. In order to micromanage, the breakdown should be in a detailed fashion. In this case from Level 5 for each component, it shall be further broken down to Level 6 which is each phase of the component construction and then Level 7, materials and resources which are required.

8. Detail for each task must not be constrained. Constraining a task is not suitable but all forms of relationships are acceptable including start-to-finish.  Duration must be included with resources after derived as per Item 6 including issues and delivery/sequential events related to third parties or vendors. In certain conditions, the contractor can start to construct a proper statistical distribution of duration based on possibilities. Simplistic will be the pyramid method which indicates less likely, likely and very likely scenarios. This duration can be tabulated as in percentile; P20, P50 and P80. *Other kinds of distribution graphs such as beta or normal distribution should be based on a couple of observations for a period of time and allow for weather changes and hourly productivity changes over a span of time. In this case, it also should include the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns especially when there is overtime.

9. Once all data and derived parameters are inserted into each task, it is time for a sequencing logic check. Here all tasks shall be checked for possible errors such as open-ends, methodology and construction procedures shall be checked. All hold points should be made available to ensure tasks are accountable for idling time. 

10. The logical and completed mitigation is not ready if the cash flow does not accommodate the contractor's financial capability. Here, resources shall be leveraged or crashed to fit the purpose. The main principle here is to maintain almost consistent cash flow for each measurement period and almost tangential to the linear graph instead of curvature of the "S" or ass shape. I do not like the term ass curve. 

11. Simulation is conducted when resources are well organized and fit the remaining time and cash flow. At this point in time, the simulation will generate P20, P50 and P80 duration and completion date. Hence, it is representative of the outcome of a workable mitigation plan. *This can be done through proper programming using MS Project or some other project management analysis tools and/or software.

12. This step is for a master planner. Risk can be included in the risk register and by determining risk burn-down works which eliminate or suppress all sort of potential risks involving critical tasks. It can also be done in another way which is through a Bayesian network diagram with proper risk weightage for each outcome from a completed task.

I hope this provides an essential perspective on how to work on a mitigation plan.

As I read some literature about project management history in Malaysia, sharing some of this information for your casual reading would be great. 

I have been involved in project planning and coordinating since I graduated in the year 2000. I was exposed to many project management software and tools which were foreign here in Malaysia. The only reason I got to tweak around these tools is due to my project director who originated from Croatia and often introduced technology from the German construction industry for us to implement.

It started with Primavera SureTrak which is less complicated than Primavera P3. Yes, it was called so before it evolved and remained as Primavera P6. SureTrak is a scheduling software which is similar to MS Project. All of this software is purely analytic tools which utilise Monte Carlo Simulation. The next best thing would be Primavera Navigator which can be considered as revolutionary as it provides a summarized dashboard about the project aside from all correspondence notices.

JKR Malaysia started with the SETIA system which runs on the DOS system since 1985 [sic] and evolved to the SKALA system which continues to be updated. Back in 1999, in my final year thesis, I was tasked to create a system which is much more robust and dynamic compared to the existing system and focus on the tendering process. At that time, I managed to use ColdFusion Allaire software to script and code CFM dHTML interfaces with the use of MS Personal Web Server and utilize MS Access as the data architecture. This can be expanded with the Apache Server system and SQL or Oracle Database. It was easy and I completed it in less than 2 weeks after studying the code. Imagine those years with limited open-source websites that cater for CFM.

Now, SKALA is the system that is used to monitor JKR federal projects in all phases from the inception of the project until the completion of physical works. Sabah has its own version which is called PALMS which is similar to SKALA. The Prime Minister Departments' ICU department which involves sick projects also has its own interface called the iPantau monitoring system. It is almost similar to SKALA with additional and expansion for other data which are relevant to the project schedule. 

In recent years and with the creation of the Pan Borneo Project, JKR Sarawak came up with JKRDash, an interface which handled big data back in 2020. JKRDash is much superior to the PIMS system implemented by the Pan Borneo Sabah delivery Partner, BHP. PIMS incorporate more information which is text-oriented rather than object-oriented and this system has been in use since early 2019. BHP was disbanded after the Sabah State Election in 2020 due to political circumstances (turmoil is more appropriate). After the recent changes in Sabah's political direction, JKR Sabah is still the Superintending Officer and this time helped by a project management consultant instead of a project delivery partner. The recent dashboard which is called Revron Insights is very much improved and is similar to the JKRDash which is rich with various information and big data including the use of GIS et cetera.

The sole question remains relevant. Despite having a year headstart for Pan Borneo Sarawak, why is Pan Borneo Sabah still suffering from hiccups? It is hard to justify Pan Borneo Sarawak now reached more than 93% completion while Pan Borneo Sabah just kickstarted with 15 out of 35 available packages and the existing packages' progress is lower than 30%. What is wrong? Who is at fault? What could be improved? When can it be completed? How can it be completed?

I was discussing project management with a quantity surveyor (QS) and it was a good session which I should share with most of you. This shows the importance of a QS in a project and would be a great addition to project management aside from project managers, project planners and accountants. Because of my experience, I have the repertoire to plan and integrate all of these into tactical planning. 

The importance of project cash flow enables the contractor to optimize the profit by reducing the need to capitalize on credit facilities. The first key to a successful project is to ensure that the profit-over-credit ratio is high. This can only be done by conducting all necessary analyses ahead of physical construction and during the first month upon receiving the Letter of Award. This period of time is critical and unlike most people think - the honeymoon period. 

In most cases, employment and recruitment take place during time as well as preparation for all P&G items, especially getting the insurance policy cover note and submission of all necessary dossiers which comply with the contract document. These activities are required but not essential to the project. What I always do during this project is draft a level 4 work schedule with all WBS related to all of the bills of the contract document. Here, adjustments can be made approximately to fit in the agreed duration and an initial shape of the work schedule. Leverage on resources can be made after methods and sequences of construction are determined. What is critical with this shape is to determine the critical phase of the project which needs additional financial capital in order to complete tasks with high weightage. This is fundamental when establishing the total duration for credit facilities and hence, determining the total interest paid to creditors and overall profit.

Now, when it comes to tactical planning; all other constants should be in place where proposed bill rationalization is ready, schedules of rates are proportionate to targetted provisional items, and both of these tie down with the final cash flow for the project. These are some of the earlier stages of planning which need to be finalized in a month's time before loading activities with resources and productivity based on a schedule basis memorandum (SBM).

From my previous experience with many Class A contractors who are merely mediocre and least successful, the cash flow chart values are generated by plucking figures from the sky using the MS Excel spreadsheet without any bases. That usually leads to a sick project after ushering in 20% of the project duration. As I reckon, the contractor will contract STD (Sickening Time Duration) from a GIGOLO (Garbage in, Garbage out, Laugh Out-Loud) regardless of the magnitude of the project. Regardless of the contractor's racial background; applying the rules, methodologies and recommendations I made has led to successful and timely completion and that does not include losses and expenses the contractor gains directly or in lieu of variation to cap up the losses explicitly based on the accounting book.

At the end of the day, it is essential to plan for the project's cash flow. Failure to plan is a plan for failure. 

Tactical planning is the dark art which not many planners or control engineers have graced as part of the essential annexe to the contract document. I often state Clause 43 and financial advantages from Clause 44 of Form PWD 203 and its variants. There are more than just these main clauses which you need to consider as part of the essence of the work schedule. The following are fields in which a planner can contest for dominance.

2. Contractual Requirements

Contractual is the primary source where all parties pledge and bind their responsibilities to complete a project. Failure of any parties leads to possible delays and losses, as mentioned in this dossier. Here, all respective parties are tasked to undertake certain responsibilities and defaulting in any way would lead to penalties. Usually, the contractor will be penalised with a certain quantum of deduction if he fails to complete the job in time and is not awarded an extension of time. In certain cases, if the defaulting parties are on behalf of the client, then the client will have to award compensable or non-compensable extensions to the contractor.

3. Statutory Requirements

In order to justify delays due to tradesmen, statutory requirements should be inserted as part of the hold-point or milestone in the work schedule. Delays in processing the submission for statutory and regulatory is a compensable delay by the client side. In order to capitalise on this particular approach in tactical planning, the planner should be aware of the performance of all project stakeholders and tradesmen. Always highlight and hold the undersigned personnel accountable by not exempting them from the work schedule in all the processes.

4. Standard Specifications

Another loophole in order to establish delays by the client side is through standard specification which explicitly requires a hold-point to be complied with. This indirectly requires a specific milestone which sees approval to be granted in a timely manner. This is related to the contractual essence in regard to information and instruction. Another exploit which a contractor can use in the standard specification is to contest the weak standard specification, especially those which are no longer in use or obsolete when it comes to nominal referencing. I will write an article about contesting the standard specification another time.

5. Standard Practices

Aside from standard specifications, there are also references which provide guidelines for any kind of code of practice. How can these be used in the initial contest when preparing the baseline? Your baseline should be based on your own schedule basis memorandum. If any bonded party scrutinises your work schedule, this will be your hail-mary pass - the last ditch to win in any discussion regarding time, quantum, and project framing. Rarely will any stakeholder would be able to argue.

6. Fine Bits of Details

In certain regions, there will be a specific hindrance which will plague the majority of the projects. One has to capitalize on this based on experience and typical outcomes which are crafted into the work schedule relationship. E.g. In Sabah, the main issue which usually extends the project is the relocation of utilities. In Sarawak, the contractor can capitalize on material shortage. In other states in the Peninsular of Malaysia, they have their own set of issues. For that reason, a planner should be familiarised with localise issues in order to capitalise on potential compensable extensions.

I hope this will provide all junior planners with some direction when it comes to tactical planning. Only experience will help. Your competency certificate and degree are as good as food wrapping.

Today, I received another question about Critical Path Method (CPM) for an ongoing project where the completion date did not shift and the actual critical path did not render the real situation. So what is wrong?

There are so many things gone wrong in a work program to be exact. First, the planner has no clear understanding of the methodology of construction. Second, the project manager is clueless. Third, the client representative is clueless about the submitted work schedule. This is the main reason why the work schedule went so wrong in rendering the actual progress and for the purpose of capturing proper documentation for extension of time (EOT). There is no way to amend this issue other than to track back the overall relationships between predecessors and successors. Note: Tracking and amending a work schedule can be 300% more than making the initial fee which is for the project baseline.

In this case, the problem here is very clear. The contractor sent a fresh engineer for a three-day training for certification instead of employing a competent project control engineer or planner and scheduler. What did this sort of training provide actually? Basic technical planning. It is nothing more than 20% of the necessary fundamentals in carrying out technical planning. What other essence is lacking? Experience. 

What is tactical planning? As I have mentioned in many of my previous articles and a recent presentation for IPMC 2022 organized by PETRONAS, tactical planning involves the dark art of manipulating all contract clauses which is useful in showing all delays are due to other parties except for the contractor. The omnipresent risks are diverted and minimized as well as showing existing due diligence was done based on documentation and official correspondence. It includes the art of exploitation, leading, and misleading apart from convincing and indirect coercion to comply with all contractual advantages. That is how complex the dark art of tactical planning which many have not mastered and called themselves competent and certified project planners.

Here, I am going to show some typical tactical planning which I applied to an ongoing mega project. The first nature of compliance is to capitalize on sub-clauses of Clause of Contract (COC) 43 of any PWD 203 contract variant. Then, the second order is to set up a quantum of payment based on the best working rate items apart from a large number of resources to execute a specific task. Third, the client and his representatives are accountable for that specific task by including them in the resource column since any hold-points and errors made by them are captured in the work schedule (which is a dossier in the contract document). This binds all parties to any kind of delay. This is substantial in establishing compensable delays and the activation of COC 44 for compensation based on losses, reimbursable, expenses and so on.

These do not work if it is not translated as relationships in a work schedule. This means the work schedule will not indicate a critical path on these selected tasks which play an important role in establishing the impact from COC 43 and compensated by COC 44. For certain junior engineers, their abilities are limited in making one or two tasks as part of the CPM, while battle-hardened can draw more than five routes which pushes the completion date further.

For example, the work schedule below renders the multiple delays that were triggered by many sub-items under COC 43. Land acquisition and approval are essential to prove that there are pockets of areas where work cannot be executed. This affects the progress of the work. Such hindrances will be prolonged by utility works. Apart from that, some other hold-point activities were introduced where compliance to specifications will halt any progress of work based on due diligence works conducted previously by understanding the construction site. Third, some independent work cannot progress forward as the design (as in instructions, specifications and drawings) did not satisfactorily comply with the desired outcome and stipulated performance. 

Hence, with multiple tasks causing havoc to the overall progress of the project, it is very clear that EOT is well documented, proven, compiled, and granted. 

By now, the contractor should understand that employing the wrong project control personnel is financial suicide and of course, it is better to have someone able to operate the work schedule than a basketcase doing things using MS Excel. Nevertheless, such half-baked project control personnel can only lead the project for less than 50% of the initial duration before encountering hiccups. Need help? Be prepared for an obscene fee and pray.

As you have understood, the percentage of progress by default in MS Project is governed by two criteria; "% Complete" is based on duration while "% Work Complete" is based on work in hours unit. Some of you will ask, why duration and not cost. Well, the holy trinity in construction embodied three main components which are quality, time and cost. In the contract document, everything is specified with caveats but one thing remains constant and that is time. 

For that reason, the last clause of any contract, time and duration will prevail and stipulates "time is of the essence" where that is the main obligation. Is cost a fixed sum for a contract? No, the cost or contract amount is a budget or an estimate for the overall monetary element which allows some changes as in final measurement and remeasurement due to provisional items and variation. 

Time takes precedence in most contract acts and parties are bonded to it while punishment or penalty is allowed by default. By default, when the contract period lapses, the contractor may be penalised based on Liquidated Ascertained Damages clauses (LAD); and delays by the client, stakeholders and third parties will be compensated with loss and expenses. This explains the fundamentals of why the duration is the critical component of construction and needs to be controlled. 

While most contracts allow fixed sum, addendum or variation (both omission and addition) is allowed and was never penalised since this process requires approval from the client. As the contractor will continue to indemnify and subject to the contract price, a hike in price or increase in construction cost is not an issue to the client. It is an issue to a single party only. Hence, it will not take precedence in such a contract.

I hope this explains why duration control is more acceptable globally than cost which renders a target of completion for a client to operate on it. The contract cost control for clients in our local construction scene through S-curve is actually a tool for monitoring and predicting the quantum of payment so that the ministry would able to allocate sufficient funds for each project. It behaves as a visual aid for performance milestones. Nevertheless, in Malaysia, we are more inclined toward cost control and rarely care to mitigate or mediate when delays are so profound and beyond recovery. Reason? There is always a LAD clause to penalize the contractor.

Why does the software calculate only duration? To make life easy, payment quantum is fixed to either of these three conditions; front loading, prorate or back loading. Most tasks will behave in a prorated manner where construction works are constant with a similar amount of money and resources. Most project payments are made based on interim payments and therefore, the progression of work done is deemed as prorated. Unless a contract is predetermined for a project to be solely measured based on selected milestones and paid using the milestone payment method, the cost can be reflected using the backloading condition. Frontloading is something that is generous and where a substantial amount of money for a deposit is given. In certain cases, advance payment can be considered as so but due to its nature as non-physical works. We rarely specified monetary advancement in the work program and this can be considered as political and socioeconomic (in helping contractors financially) policies than general practice.

Hence, when prorated, work done and measured in monetary shall be converted into duration or in a detailed work program as work done. The work is measured by cost at the site and then converted into duration. The deeper the level of the work program, the better coverage in rendering the actual progress of the project rather than depicted as a generalized task.

Financial progression does not indicate urgency. Time will. Some work is highly weighted but only needs a little time to perform. On the other hand, some critical and lowly weighted tasks may need a longer time to complete. That does not even include possible hold points. When looking for criticality and urgency, time is the best scale. What does the Monte Carlo Simulation for the Critical Path Method lead to? The longest route is based on duration.

I hope this particular article explains the fundamental project control nature is the duration and not the cost. 

 Question:

How to ensure the percentage (%) is similar to the previous one? Is there any possibility of having a similar percentage? Why all percentages of tasks are different? The Resident Engineer wants it to be the same.

Answer:

This Resident Engineer is not qualified to administrate contractual elements and involved with project management. I see this many times and I also have a hard time answering because many do not have the fundamental understanding of work schedules and the scheduling program, regardless of Primavera P6 or MS Project.

It is essential to understand that the scheduling software recognizes many things separately. The scheduling software recognizes two types of default percentages. 

• A. % Complete field refers to actual duration divided by total duration. This is based on the days specified to complete a task.

• B. % Work Complete field refers to actual work divided by total works. This also relies on duration but includes the consideration of works performed based on plants, machinery and labourers. An increase in days may equate to a linear projection for a task but not the overall work breakdown structure. Confusing?

If you have a task which is prolonged due to delays, the total days of the work shall be extended to fit the approved extension of time. 

Say, Scooping a pile of shit was planned to be completed in 200 days. Since the superintendent officer failed to provide appropriate directives to do the work (as in information or instruction), the work was prolonged to 300 days. The problem happened after the actual work progressed for 30 days based on cost and measuring sheet where initial planning was scheduled to complete at least 45 days.

Currently before EOT Revision (Eq.1 and Eq.2)

• % Work (actual displayed on the field) = 30 days/200 days, 15%

• % Work (planned based on baseline) = 45 days/200 days, 22.5%

Once EOT is approved and an additional 100 days are granted to continue scooping the pile of sand, the percentage will come out as follows;

After revision (Eq. 3 and Eq.4)

1. % Work (actual displayed on the field) = 30 days/300 days, 10%

2. % Work (planned based on new baseline) = 45 days/300 days, 15%

The fixed cost (as most PWD203 contract variants) of scooping sand remains RM100 for 200 days or even 300 days. In this case, your actual progress remains at RM15 regardless of the extension of time whereas you should achieve RM22.50 (based on the initial planning or baseline). Unless cost is defined which includes resources distributed in units and with unit rate, the overall cost will change and behave as per % work field in the task and may vary for the overall work breakdown structure (WBS) depending on the changes that occurred to days of other tasks within the WBS. 

When there is an extension of time, where the duration of tasks increases, the software automatically recalculates and changes the percentage for both fields as mentioned above. Additional days added will increase the duration and work. The equations above clearly define and explain the reason why the percentage will never be the same. This is due to the true nature of physical progress which is expressed in duration or work. The percentage will remain if the task is not prolonged or completed.

There are ACWP, BCWP and BCWS which involve cost. Sadly, if your works are not (cost) loaded correctly, these three fields are useless. 99% of the construction projects in Malaysia will never use these features, so there is no point in elaborating on these.

How can a competent person, eg. Resident Engineer with PE accreditation get this wrong? He is confused with financial progress based on monetary progression. When an extension of time is granted, where financial progress remains the same, no change should appear and affect the progress for two S-curves; Financial S-curve and Physical S-curve.

The international standard in project control does not really rely on financial progress but emphasizes physical work. It is funny that projects in Malaysia consider two different S-Curves based on financial progress where the outcome fits the description of an oxymoron going full retard. It is wrong and it is embarrassing.

This creates a lot of confusion even in international project management scenes when typical Malaysians describe physical progress as monetary progress minus P&G, Prime Cost and some other non-physical works as physical progress, whereas financial is the progress of overall financial achievement against total contract price. In reality, physical progress measured by scheduling programs relies on time and work. See, the reason for such confusion?

These are some of the things that plagued our project management in Malaysia. That is why we have 30% of government-related sick projects in Malaysia when we have problems understanding the basic method of gauging progress. Our so-called professionals got it wrong and they inherited things that are wrong for decades. Sad to say, we are not in the infancy stage as the industry has been well matured. The issue here is our construction industry project management practice is like a mentally unsound individual; dangerous, volatile and beyond comprehension.

This is what many typical contractors will reply when project controllers or planners quote them a price for our service. I don't blame them but this is the industry's perspective as it is now.  What went wrong? 

2. No initiative by the government. Pieces of the literature show that a third of government projects in Malaysia can be considered sick projects with delays beyond the hope of mitigation and recovery. This was not mediated by the government, especially JKR and CIDB. Industrial Building System (IBS) was propelled forward with all sorts of incentives and now become a common scene where scores are given higher to engineers or contractors who proposed the use of IBS. The fee for project management is non-existence in the Preliminaries and Generals (P&G) bill. 

The only thing that is sensibly related to such is scheduling and work schedule preparation costs. In order to bring the P&G bill down to 10% of the overall bills of quantities, this particular element is usually reduced to a value that is illogical. Typically, for a project valued at RM20 million, the value can be as low as RM20,000 for a 24-month project which is lower than a minimum wage. CIDB and JKR should now instil or fix a value for this element as low as RM7,000 a month after considering profit and attendance. They could have manipulated provisional items which were deemed to be sufficient to burst the contract price if the project was unfavourable. These are things a project control is aware of and will capitalize on when preparing for a bid with the assistance of the rest of the team.

3. Talking about competency. In Malaysia, a project controller does not exist in the government project's organization chart. The last time I see an official bidding document which requires a certified or competent project control engineer in projects by PETRONAS. The government-related project superintending officers and the contract document ensure only a scheduler (hardly a project planner even though it was stipulated as so) to be named upon preparing the work schedule within 14 days upon project awardance. * I will be using the term 'scheduler' when I refer to what is interchangeably termed as a project planner in most government projects. 

The only competency required is the capability of scheduling work schedules. On the other hand, the project controller is much more significant which ties both the scheduler and the project manager. Some may argue that PMP-certified project managers are capable of doing what a project controlling works. The reality is that for a candidate (for the PMP exam by PMI) to be guaranteed a pass concept is farfetched from the concept of competency. A competent project controller needs to have more skills than the basic knowledge in the PMBOK, especially in contractual and project-related matters.

4. The importance of a project controller. Unlike project managers and project schedulers, projects are getting sick because of the incapacitated job descriptions which left a gap that needs to be filled by the project controller.  The project controller not only controls the work schedule. He plans for financial advantages, works involving leveraging and crashing at the site, contractual advantages and the dark art of project management. He supports the project manager in ensuring the resources are in accordance with the planned actions and executed timely and in a cost-effective manner. He dictates the type of game to be played and the quantum of actions to be performed for contractual purposes. He supports the contract manager, construction manager and/or quantity surveyors. The project controller behaves like a project director but is only involved in technical matters and the integration of multidisciplinary engineering fields.

5. Financial reward? At this moment, this sort of service can be considered a niche application and a forte that not many construction individuals are capable of. Nevertheless, it is not seen as important or part of the integral system of project management by many contractors until they start to see the advantages when linking works, financial and contractual advantages. Thus, the market value remains low.

6. Some paid and reaped the reward. It is common knowledge to most in the construction industry that most contractors have problems with their extension of time submission and approval. They succumbed to liquidated ascertained damages (LAD) with harsh financial penalties. For well-documented and controlled projects with dark art in contractual and engineering, most contractors are able to be discharged from such penalties. It is dark artistry which established contractors will appreciate in receiving an extension of time easily as well as claiming for loss and expenses. Everything is well prepared for mediation, arbitration and/or adjudication process should the client are not competent in contractual issues (like they usually are).

But not many didn't know how consultants are now suffering due to their incapacity to counter LAD imposed on them due to delays by third parties when they slipped away from their initial date for deliverables in their Terms of Reference (TOR)? In many cases, bad planning and control by consultants led to poor documentation and resulted in illogical penalties (in some cases, were penalized far more than their professional fee).

7. When local literature paints project management in Malaysia as in its infancy stage, imagine the game can be played by the contractor or consultant shall they have a competent person providing proper advisory from an engineering perspective, continuously indemnifying with all sorts of project management tools and interpretation as well as rendering the right contractual and financial strategy. 

Pay peanut, get monkey! Instead of being granted an extension of time and easy money through the loss and expenses contract clause, the contractor ended up with losses like an obstinate chicken back to roost. Even worse, like a cow ended up at the abattoir. A bloody mess. You poor poor contractor (pun intended). 

By Now, you should understand the advantages that a project controller would bring to the table as a contractor.

Should a freshly graduated civil engineer start their career as a planning engineer? There are two answers and indefinite reasons for any of these answers and caveats to each statement.

1. Planning engineer job is not suitable for fresh graduates. Planning is done on many levels and windows or phases in a construction project. Before we discuss this in detail, let us put things and terminologies into proper perspective to avoid misunderstanding. 

In planning, there are several job scopes in the contractor's planning department. The planner or master planner is the person in charge to envisage and orchestrate the completion of the project within a fixed schedule and budget. He is responsible for planning in detail and determining the resources and costs required to execute a task. He is assisted by two others, namely the project control engineer and the scheduler apart from acting as liaisons at times with the construction manager, project manager, project director, site agents, engineers and so on. In certain projects, planners are known as project control engineers. It relates to the task of controlling the overall project progress. 

A planner usually needs to have experience in managing construction sites and a comprehensive understanding of construction sequences, methods of construction, QAQC, and so forth. Without this, a plan prepared is garbage! Garbage in, garbage out.

2. Nevertheless, a fresh graduate can always start as a scheduler. As a scheduler, not only Greenhorns be able to learn how to operate and optimize planning and control software, but they can also understand other issues which co-exist with project control such as contractual issues, legalities, statutes, common practices et. cetera. Would a fresh graduate be able to handle planning during the construction phase and be ready for adjudication, mediation, arbitration and so on? The answer is no! Planning is not about operating a simple and MS Excel lookalike interface. Hence, there is a need for a familiarization phase for fresh graduates before having full access to information and articulate in making a good and sound decision.

3. Planning for an RM30,000 drain project for a Class F contractor and an RM300 million mega project is not the same. A fresh graduate may be able to perform well on a puny project but not a project which needs to be derived and broken down into 6 levels and loaded with cost and resources. A fresh graduate does not have access to productivity without prior experience and multiplier(s) in context or a pretext for each activity. 

4. Planning software is a tool while project management is an art. How can a person be an artisan if he or she never works as a craftsman? The software usually provides Gantt Chart which uses Monte Carlo Simulation in determining the critical path. For a much more robust software, it can perform risk analysis. Without clear fundamentals about risk and statistics application, no one can perform proper analysis or inferences with available data. What do we expect from a fresh graduate when project planning and control itself is meticulous by nature involving a lot of considerations and parameters? How about running a Monte Carlo Simulation with the use of a Bayesian Network in 1,000 iterations?

5. Literature suggests that two-thirds of public projects in Malaysia will be delayed and most of the time, 90% will not be able to foresee hindrances and incumbrances in a project. This can be translated as most projects nationwide headed by the best planners are not able to mitigate issues and have no choice but to allow for an extension of time when certain stakeholders and parties are not playing active roles in the project. What is the odd for a fresh graduate to put things into perspective or even to achieve the desired result shall there be a need to mitigate via resources leveraging and crashing?

6. Contractors have this tendency to quote very low for their P&G when it comes to planning since the terminology in most PWD 203 variants specifies it as "the progress report". To offset the low quote in their tender, the contractor has no choice but to abide by employing fresh graduates with low salaries with the thought of everything being covered through a 3-day planning course. This is futile as most of this type of practice ended up with ICU unit visits.

Hence, it is best for a fresh graduate to start at a design office or be assigned as a site engineer before boarding on an organization as a planner. Frankly, it is a lonely world for a greenhorn with no one to refer to since every project is unique. I hope this will provide insight for young engineers when deciding on their career path. Planning is suitable if you are familiar with the construction phases or at least assist the project manager throughout a project.

Conventionally, risks are analyzed separately where the interactions among them have not been considered. The BN approach was mainly used to model risk involving possibilities and relationships while MC was used to assess the effects of risks on the functional goals of the project without considering the interaction among risks (Namazian et al., 2019). Although specific organizations practice aggregation of risks in projects or portfolios, the method of assigning uncertainties and risks only concentrates on each task's duration without adding a BN logic network. 

This method concentrates on the deterministic sequence of each activity based on epistemic risks keyed into the risk register without rendering the nature of risks in the project which are usually dichotomous. The omission of the binary logic network will not provide the actual scenario or desired risk aversion simulation when weighing and depending on the probability distribution function which is derived from a three-point estimate (or triangulation) and risk aggregation matrix or matrices. 

The issue with such limitations will arise if the estimates are assigned with no basis and backed by literature or at least experience. In short, no inferential was made to construe the meaning behind each given level of risk and impact that can lead to GIGO (Garbage-in-garbage out) computation.

As I am about to conclude my journal on risk in project management for the International Project Management Conference (IPMC 2022) organized by PETRONAS, I would like to share the outcome of this particular exercise.

Both annexed risk distribution graphs are the outcome of similar (duration) planning works where risks are triangulated based on Pareto Rules for easier understanding. You can observe the significant changes in the distribution. The shape shifts from a normal distribution or Weibull distribution graph to a log-normal graph. This highlights the significant chance of percentile for a task completion date.

This signifies the limited use of conventional project management software which uses tables as part of risk indicators only. These parameters were not entered as part of the Critical Path Method which deploys the Monte Carlo Simulation but also integrates the Bayesian Network in determining the percentage of risk that may take place in branches and like (successors and convergence from two predecessors). For the Monte Carlo Simulation, the logic sticks to the longest route and with 1,000 iterations, it projects the worst conditions of a possible delay. The Bayesian Network does not see the longest path, it seeks the logic of all routes and occurrences 

based on chances. The similarity that both graphs share is the completion date. Hence, the date itself may not be a good indicator if the essence of possibilities is not scrutinized for optimization.

Now, I hope everyone can understand that risk analysis can come in many ways. The degree of analysis will provide the level of complexity and accuracy in making adjustments for mitigation works. In this case, it works in the contractor's favour by justifying that delays were triggered by activities which could have been executed differently by the client. If only the client could have taken another approach or diligently taken into consideration based on this retrospective; delays would not happen.

There are types of delays that can occur in a construction project. The types of delays can be classed into four main categories which are non-excusable delays, excusable non-compensable delays, excusable and compensable delays, and concurrent delays. 

Tactical advantages based on the PWD 203 variants contract form for the purpose of confabulation. When discussing delay(s), the contract form allows provisions based on types of delay(s). Among clauses which provide clarity on these delays are as follows;

• Clause 43: Delay and Extension of Time

• Clause 44: Claim for Loss and Expense

• Clause 50.2: Extension of Time

• Clause 51: Events and Consequences of Default by the Contractor

• Clause 55: Events and Consequences of Default by the Government

• Clause 58: Effect of Force Majeure

• Clause 62: No Liability of Government to Nominated and/or Sub-contractor or Supplier

Addenda and/or addendum to the Condition of Contract 

A delay claim can be made as long as the contractor has shown diligence, efforts and level of care in a timely manner and actions to mitigate the issue(s) are proven in all paperwork. Where inevitable, the Client will have to pay compensation to the contractor if it is proven that provisions were made for the additional costs and expenses incurred during that particular period of time. 

Only a master planner can plan for these kinds of delays in their work program or schedule. It is not intuitive but premeditated for the dark side to acquire more time to complete the project, especially when the determined (prior to the tender process and set as part of the pre-bid requirements) project duration is unrealistic. It is the dark side of planning and this is called tactical planning. It is more than technical planning.

Why would you deliberately delay a project and bear additional costs for site management and salaries? How does this tie to the cash flow of the project after leveraging resources (plants and types of machinery) with optimized credit facilities? 

The whole intention is to keep linear progress in the financial S-curve without a sudden surge of expenses in certain months and ensure the interest paid and credit term remain low. This is why exponential curvature is not considered as beautiful. That is not an S-curve, that is an ass carved in stone. Not aesthetic but eccentric!

There are types of delays that can occur in a construction project. The types of delays can be classed into four main categories which are non-excusable delays, excusable non-compensable delays, excusable and compensable delays, and concurrent delays. 

Tactical advantages based on the PWD 203 variants contract form for the purpose of confabulation. When discussing delay(s), the contract form allows provisions based on types of delay(s). Among clauses which provide clarity on these delays are as follows;

• Clause 43: Delay and Extension of Time

• Clause 44: Claim for Loss and Expense

• Clause 50.2: Extension of Time

• Clause 51: Events and Consequences of Default by the Contractor

• Clause 55: Events and Consequences of Default by the Government

• Clause 58: Effect of Force Majeure

• Clause 62: No Liability of Government to Nominated and/or Sub-contractor or Supplier

Addenda and/or addendum to the Condition of Contract 

A delay claim can be made as long as the contractor has shown diligence, efforts and level of care in a timely manner and actions to mitigate the issue(s) are proven in all paperwork. Where inevitable, the Client will have to pay compensation to the contractor if it is proven that provisions were made for the additional costs and expenses incurred during that particular period of time. 

Only a master planner can plan for these kinds of delays in their work program or schedule. It is not intuitive but premeditated for the dark side to acquire more time to complete the project, especially when the determined (prior to the tender process and set as part of the pre-bid requirements) project duration is unrealistic. It is the dark side of planning and this is called tactical planning. It is more than technical planning.

Why would you deliberately delay a project and bear additional costs for site management and salaries? How does this tie to the cash flow of the project after leveraging resources (plants and types of machinery) with optimized credit facilities? 

The whole intention is to keep linear progress in the financial S-curve without a sudden surge of expenses in certain months and ensure the interest paid and credit term remain low. This is why exponential curvature is not considered as beautiful. That is not an S-curve, that is an ass carved in stone. Not aesthetic but eccentric!

1. Overruling the specification? How dare you overrule a standard specification (SP) set by the Client and bound as part of the Contract? You are not the Superintending Officer and how can you take charge of overruling?

2. These are typical questions by many engineers who fail to see beyond their responsibilities. The question is not about overruling but what can be done during the quality assurance (QA) stage which will assist decisions when it comes to the quality control (QC) stage. What miscellaneous information can be used as parameters, determinants, and/or constants when analyses are conducted when issues arise during the construction stage? Here is the trade-off for an engineer to plan from the early stage of any construction based on previous projects and lessons learned.

3. Updates: The SP is a reference point which comes with many narratives and is usually backed with other normative references. In this case, most of the national-level specification allows clauses in the SP to be overruled by the latest national and international normative references when these are in place. This can be seen in JKR's Standard Specification for Building Works. 

4. Discretion: Apart from the latest normative references, the SP allows the Consulting Engineer to apply his professional decision in making proper calls when it comes to executing work. This is the case which creates a lot of confusion for engineers. Some will take it with pride and distinction and allow for good practices. On the other hand, this usually causes many engineers to be uneasy about deciding and refrain from making changes for fear of noncompliance.

Overruling part(s) of the SP could be something which is beneficial for QAQC and part of the concept of establishing value engineering. The adoption of new specification(s) may reduce one of the three elements in construction; cost, time and quality. This creates value! It allows for robust and durable structures to be built and comply with the latest standard requirements. It is also a compelling method of increasing initial testing for more data part of validating one's moves and discretion on certain issues based on statistical analyses.

6. Have you overruled any standard specifications in a project?

I am still studying this particular statistical method in determining and centralizing/normalizing non-normal data distribution through big data. It is a step in balancing back and rebuilding risk distribution. Through this method, the distribution can be harmonized.

The application is an inheritance from the Bayesian method with the utilization of Monte Carlo simulation through matrix resolution. Nevertheless,  before this can be used, I think it requires piloting before applying it to risk distribution for project risk management. A planner needs to understand and relate every work breakdown structure (WBS) and/or task with the desired distribution graph when running risk management software. The fundamental step in having an analysis be conducted correctly in risk management software such as Primavera Risk Analysis would be establishing the appropriate distribution shape, quantification; and subsequently quantum. Many need to understand that in normal conditions, risk distribution for duration has never been normal distribution. In certain tasks, it is extremely weighted in certain sections of the graph which leads to Lognormal and Weibull shapes. It can be in either curve or triangulation formation which both are quite related unless you have weird kurtosis and skewness.

Failure to do so will result in garbage assumptions. This means two things; you are a GIGOLOL (Garbage In, Garbage Out, Laugh Out Loud) and did ASSUME (making an ASS of U and ME).

The gist of the normalization of big data and the inclusion of spatial distribution of each function would be to understand how actual data behaves and the reality of works on-site. This has been one of the main failures when making a general statement after performing an analysis of risk for possible delay of a project.

I initially wanted to write an article about MCMC from my past portfolio and how it has impacted my dark side of project management. However, it would be too complicated for many academicians and many project management professionals. It is best to revert to simplicity with proper literature and maybe talk about statistics in detail in project management through a book chapter. The latter plan would entail all considerations when making a proper analysis.

One thing which worries me when it comes to the introduction of assessment tools in project risk management in Malaysia is how rapid misconceptions in a project can develop when stakeholders' representatives are quick to disseminate wrong interpretations making things extremely hard for many contractors with bureaucracies and red tapes just to make things complicated just to look good. The knowledge probably is best suppressed from the public in general and applicable to real masters.

I have completed my rant for this morning as I sort my journal articles into sub-folders. It is not hard to teach but it is hard to stop misinterpretation by those who try to appeal like real masters when they are not. I decided to keep it simple. KISS - keep it short and simple; sometimes it means "keep it short, stupid".

It is a nightmare for many planners when involved in projects where a client does not understand the significant relationship between these two procedures. Both documents should co-exist and be tied together to allow for proper planning and very often, the client would insist on submission of the work program in 2 weeks. It is stipulated in the contract document for such compliance. Nevertheless, the rationalization of the BQ usually takes months or even years, tentatively toward the binding of the contract document.

One thing which many planners don't like with rationalization is to trace back and re-base all the ongoing tasks in regards to the costs which were changed. The issue about tracking back after rationalization is not a problem but it is a practice for the planner to split and lump BQ items to form a task. It is a tiresome thing to do and will take substantial man-hours to complete and tally back the final figure.

Hence, it is appropriate for the client to ensure rationalization is completed in the first month so that planning can be executed and project control can start within 3 months after the kickoff meeting. As for now, double-handling is a waste of time and resources.

I am preparing a few abstracts for conventions this year. Among these papers are related to project management apart from engineering and geology. One of the key papers I am going to present would be in regards to risk distribution which was never entailed and annexed previously in preparation of Schedule Basis Memorandum (SBM) as essential submission when deriving a work program for projects by NGCs like PETRONAS. Unlike JKR PWD203 variants contract which require a conventional project contractor to submit a work program in just fourteen days, NGCs or mega projects of national interest require and allow for a longer period of time to prepare a work program. Often, the work program will be scrutinized and SBM is one of the many bases a planner or project control engineer will be based on.

2. For many years, contractor will have to prepare a work program using software like MS Project and Primavera to compute a decent work program which capitalized on Gantt Chart and PERT features which are related to Monte Carlo simulation. Here, the longest route is called critical path and this method is called Critical Path Method (CPM). This path shows the ultimate time required by the project in order to complete based on project brief, contract, cost, time and statutes.

3. Although these software and tools have been dominant in establishing basic requirement to establish a manifested contract where time is always of the essence, it lacks in robustness during the project control phase. Most of the time, the CPM established may not be the crux to delay. The inability to foresee other risks within the network and nexus of a series of works has hindered many stakeholders from tracking delays during the earlier part of project implementation stage. This is also a reason why S-curve for typical projects are always flattened at the 30% of the project duration before start to climb in linear or exponential shape toward the 90% of the total contract time.

4. In order to tackle this problem, many kind of risk analysis tools have been introduced and adopted. It can be Fishbone method, Tripod Beta method and so on; where all are then included into a risk register. The problem with risk register is a statistic subset and known as ordinal data. It is a grouping and then arithmetically summed to have a register with categorization. Less robust risk register only categorize risks as ordinal and nominal dataset. This is how data are segregated and analyzed. It is over simplified and traditional as conventional approach is much easier to understand, control and dictate but these have zero value when it comes to implementation with bigdata.

5. SBM usually incorporate these kind of oversimplified registers which often bring zero value when it comes to forecasting. These kind of registers cannot be use for further statistical analysis when associating a work program with risk assessment tools such as Primavera Risk Analysis or Safran Risk Manager. There is no way for a client to injunct a remedial or recovery plan especially when it comes to micromanagement. A specific approach is required and hence, a statistical approach for analysis is required when it comes to thorough contractual documentation and determination.

7. One of the many features in a risk management software is the allocation of risk and uncertainty distribution. This is essential where the distribution of risks are divided into many types, typically; beta pert, lognormal, triangulation and others. Unlike a typical scheduling software with uniform distribution, the inclusion of these graphs is essential when running Bayesian Belief Network and Monte Carlo simulations up to 1,000 iterations. Nevertheless, the basis to establish each task and its risk distribution should be determined based on past project bigdata. Without a prior and typical population, a posterior cannot be established nor conclusive in depicting or rendering a possibility.

8. For this reason, a call to establish specific type of distribution is indispensable and inevitable. The only variable in this kind of distribution shall be regional or internal issues when it comes to kurtosis of the graph as the eccentricity of the graph is fixed based on bigdata. Hence, this will give project control department more power to interject a possible delay before resorting to mitigation works which is too late and time consuming.

9. Another advantage of statistical and scientific approach would be great for client or top management to establish their project timeline during the initial stage of a project lifecycle as it will provide assurance that the contract brief is realistic and have at least achieved at a range between the seventy-fifth percentile to the eighty-fifth percentile which fits Pareto Rule instead of picking a number from the sky or making references from past projects with different set of risks, quantum and magnitude.

Extension of Time (EOT) in construction industry is an added time which was granted by the Client after scrutinizing incidents which have contributed directly and require extended time for the contractor to complete a project with or without variation to the contract price. There are several prerequisite criteria which a contractor must conform in order to be grated EOT and in certain projects, EOT can be granted multiple of time. In my past project, Client (Oil & Gas MNC) have to award me one and a half year EOT, however granted me only six months due to other constraints which I will not name here.

2. Planning is divided into two criteria; technical project planning and tactical project planning. Both of these use similar software such as Microsoft Project and Primavera but the approach used in dictating a project is different. Technical planning usually revolves around compliance in updating and reporting about the current progress with the assistance of other diagnostic tools and the use of Monte Carlo simulation. Tactical project planning is another level of technical planning where it embodies the contract and risk as precedence before other elements in technical planning. Moreover, a lot of other analyses involving contract and risk will take place. Contract interpretation involves the contract document and other legal elements, while risk mitigation involves more than just Monte Carlo simulation. This includes statistics such as Pearson or Spearman correlation, time-related binomial distribution and utilizing Latin Hypercube Sampling in order to provide level of significance for event(s).

3. Once EOT is granted, a project planner will have to do the followings;

3A. To update all activities with appropriate progress percentage before making current progress at site as a basis or baseline. All existing baseline dates. durations and costs can be transferred to Baseline 1. Subsequently, a new baseline dates, durations and costs shall be established in accordance to awarded new completion time and cost. In certain cases where omission is required, cost adjustment or realization will take place to reflect the new instruction and notice(s).

3B. To recalculate remaining works using productivity schedule for affected activities and group these dates as optimistic duration, mean duration (from your planning software) and pessimistic duration. In this particular calculation, additional considerations should be included in case possible delay(s) may be prolonged. SWOT analysis can be handy but a planner must ensure that quality and cost should not be hindrances to achieve targeted duration.

3C. If there are additional works to the EOT as in variation to contract price, additional works should be included in the new work program with approved cost. This should be introduced with new task relationship(s) that may see existing tasks to shift forward into a newer completion date. One of the biggest failures many did previously is the failure to leverage the resources. Introduction of newer activities and extended time do not mean a project is able to employ and discharge workers based on the man-month. One have to review their resources histogram and their financial momentum. In no way, a project should be allowing sudden dip or spike to their monthly expenses. I reckon the S-curve to be as linear as possible to avoid disastrous outcome for additional project funding and additional cost contributed for financial interest when cashflow is running below optimized level.

3D. After completing the new proposed baseline, a sequential analyses can be performed to see if the new work program is robust enough to tackle all contractual issues if one wants to established dominance in tactical planning and robust final account. The additional works or delayed work may render as critical path but in certain cases where multiple elements was considered, this may not be the case. For this purpose, always try to gauge and foresee possibilities of delay that maybe triggered by contract sub-clauses (in Malaysia case PWD203 and its variants - Extension of Time, and Loss and Expenses).

3E. The outcome of analyses would indicate how robust the work program can be and is bulletproof from contractual elements. When satisfied, this shall be submitted as a new work program and use for scheduling purposes. Else, it is back to the planning board for continuous rework.

4. In this particular write up, the complimentary information on tactical planning is the ability of a planner to exploit contract clauses but one have to be very articulate when it comes to causal and sequential route to the utilization of such exploit(s). I hope project planners are aware of their responsibilities and articulate their depth of knowledge in contractual and legal matters into the work program. Planning requires wisdom or else, a planner is just a scheduler or an operator.

I spent a few hours justifying and verifying points and remarks made by a professional planning unit in a mega project yesterday. Apart from that, I did vindicates on tasks which I believe as my contractual advantages. To make matters really complicated, I am facing the CEO of the mega project alone. Scared? Nope. I will explain why?

1. First of all, all planners must understand the essence of planning such as productivity and sequential arrangement which make resources and tasks look logical and convincing. Formidable numbers on quantities of each work broken down into sections as well as quantity which are lump together to form a number. This is the reason why I always mention about 80% on paper and 20% on software. It starts with prediction and accumulation of information and then inferential thoughts were built during the summation processes. This gives a total understanding and underlying risks that a contractor will face during the construction. Apart from that, the technical knowledge is key in justifying the whole chain of events especially those on critical path. Never try to plan any projects which you are not technically sound or never undertook previously. That is suicidal.

2. Before a presentation, always highlight one thing. Schedule Basis Memorandum! This is essential to convince client that you are the right person to plan and they too can relate the mentioned projects with the one you are planning. The nexus to this introduction is to elevate your status as a successful person in certain projects. Once you established control of the board room and got their attention, you got the whole room for yourself to explain things.

3. Ditch the power point. You are wasting too much time on power point presentation as most of the questions thrown to you during this session would need you to sketch on white board. Everything should be at the back of your head and backed with spreadsheet calculations. Not one, two or three but more than ten spreadsheets in regards to derivation. Spend that 70% of your time generating a work program in spreadsheet. 10% on extraction from the bills and drawings. I encountered many even recently, commenting about work programs without referring to drawings which render themselves as obstinate and irresponsible in executing their work.

4. Answer concisely to questions that were thrown to you. I know many tried to bullshit their way out but good planers with innate management skills will not do so as numbers will back them up. At times, pretext were made based on inferential during the summation process and that is open for discussion. Context and pretext can be ambiguous, hence these depends very much on communicating the ideas and twisting their arm to accept your approach and vindicate the reason why it is as it is.

5. Examples based on schedule basis memorandum is essential in convincing. Explain the sequence nicely and why it is appropriate to link and tie down certain activities in a way. Working in green field and public projects have different methods in approaching and resolving an execution. It is subjective and there is no right and no wrong in planning. It needs to be logical, proven and cost/time saving. Hindrances need to be addressed and tackled. Nevertheless, what difference an exceptionally good planner and average one is the critical thinking capacity. Sadly, not everyone is blessed with it. Planning may look to be acceptable but the devil is in the details. That is how people start to nip points before retiring you from further explanation.

6. Add-on values is essential. A planner should able to provide certain information apart from planning. E.g., Technical knowledge and et cetera. This will paint a better perspective about your capabilities and render your effort in putting up with the whole plan and covered the project from every point. This also provide consolation knowing that you have considered indemnification of the client from potential risks during the project.

7. ASS-Curve. I don't like S-curve. The nonsense behind the shape is not only illogical but stupid. The shape should be derived based on planning and not the other way round. What is they with shapes? If we are talking about power in statistics, it is essential. It shows regression in different power. In construction, a linear curve makes more sense. Why? The logic behind it is to ensure the credit facility that the contractor have applied is not messed up and consistent. This also ease the life of superintending officer and client in budgeting their claim. If there is a kink in sudden surge for a month or two, it is acceptable. Contractor can cope up with 3 months credit facility from suppliers. A planner should have experience with banking system when it comes to credit facilities. Changes in ratios or so on will not be things a banker really want to encounter. Additional fund is not readily available at stages of the construction, so plan your cashflow well. We also know those who come up with cash flow based on spreadsheet and prorate everything without planning. That is pure trash.

8. Having to share some of these essential tactical planning, junior planners should continue their career as engineers or surveyors until a stage where they can envisage a project execution like a project manager. Nothing wrong with becoming a planner at a young age but similar to diamonds, it is rough and need a lot of polishing before shifting from technical planning to tactical planning. Enjoy your career and my only advice is to learn technical, contractual and financial items in the process. This means that a junior engineer have to be close to a mentor, consulting engineers, top brass of the contractor and other agents in construction industries.

Yesterday, I alone faced close to twenty senior participants (from Lead Consultant, DEDC, PMC/ICE, JKR) when I presented my work program for Pan Borneo work package. 100 activities mainframe and we labored out a fruitful discussion which leads to serious discussion on critical path.

The discussion did not even talk about rubbish such as relationships and so on. It is never the issue when projects are above RM300 million. It was dwelling around geotechnical and geological issues which forms bases of critical path and risk management. Material science is important as pedogeology and hydrogeology of argillaceous and melange soils may cause possible delay as it is stipulated in great details about suitability of materials for road construction, mainly forming the embankment.

1. When talking about project planning especially Microsoft Project, one needs a few days of explicit education and tutorial to grasp the basics of operation and reporting. It is easy when it is actually not.

2. There are differences between a software operator and a real professional planner. A software operator will just do what the project director want and the professional planner will take the lead and envisage the project direction and time.

3. In order to lead and envisage, one must have sufficient knowledge and here comes the most important components of knowledge-based management. First is the explicit knowledge and second, the tacit knowledge. With or without mentor, one must learn the trade in order to apply all of these into the work program.

4. Work planning is a phase of planning which is so essential where 80% are planning on paper, while the rest is programmed into the work program. Then we have 80% technical planning and the remaining 20% tactical planning.

5. Tacit knowledge takes precedence in 80% of the planning works which incorporates technical and tactical planning which usually comes with experience and experimentation though experience. The logic of the work program and the bases in Schedule Basis Memorandum will be invalid definitely without prior knowledge. Not only it is invalid to the eyes of other parties but will also run down the construction sustainability, depending on elements of the construction trinity; cost, quality and time.

6. Tacit knowledge will be the core in tactical planning which camouflage the whole work program which introduces leeway for contractual advantages and command for defensive and offensive moves when administrating a contract. It is so detailed that it often covers legal conditions to establish prima facie and/or to subjugate a party into omission through court injunctions. Some of the great moves are ejection of party or parties out of the contract.

7. Technical planning and execution in building a work program is usually the smaller part of the overall planning which links activities or tasks and to include the cost and other construction-related information.

8. Hence, without proper knowledge, planning and its components, a project will not be successful in delivering all deliverables until the end of the project.

Will there be Extension of Time (hereafter known as EOT) this time around for another round of lockdown? The previous lockdown or MCO 1.0 allows contractor to gain 100+ days of EOT.

1. I am not sure if EOT this time will be awarded since works are not forcefully stopped as it is in MCO 1.0. Knowing the industry, contractor(s) will try to squeeze everything the have to make their project moving (although we in Project Management understand such action is pretty much idiotic) so that they can work and then apply for EOT which they deemed will be one hundred percent awarded to them in coming months.

2(A). Nevertheless, from legal point of view when we review the Contract Form PWD 203 or 203A, there is one prerequisite in the contract which many contractor will fall into legal trap when EOT leads to Loss and Expenses. I foreseen this is the case within the next two or three years when government don't have the money to entertain such claim for final account.

2(B ). This points to the prerequisite as I have mentioned earlier which talks about Force Majeure. Now under PWD 203A, COVID-19 pandemic can be deemed fittingly described as per clause 57.2 and relevant sub-clauses which should be read in the light of Clause 43 - Delay and Extension of Time.

2(C).Under clause 57.3, the precursor to these sub-clauses activation would be the key condition of "... either Party is unable to perform any of its obligation under this Contract.." Hence, it is a contractual understanding that if one have failed to to perform the contractual obligation, only then EOT shall be awarded.

2(D). In the context of providing chances to work does not relieve the Contractor from their responsibilities to work as if they are in full force because there is no discussion on quantum of work or resources discussed. In another hand, government is relieved from any sort of claim due to delay of resources and so on when performing such work is sub-clause 43.1(i) where contractor have taken into consideration they are working with things under control as they should continue working diligently although this delay is unforeseen prior to binding of the contract but was given the option to work or to halt work.

2(E). This somehow will not be favorable to the contractor as there is no clear locus standi for arbitration and mediation. Now, bringing this in for any adjudication is futile based on CIPAA Act 2012 since EOT was being fair; contractor opt to continue with work despite knowing low capacity and productivity of all sort of resources.

3. Working during the lockdown have a lot of disadvantages and even may cause contractor to default their obligations based on 10.1(e) where Government should always being indemnified from troubles and legal suites in regards to COVID-19.

4. Working with no supervision from the Consultant or In-house Consultant may lead to Quality Assurance Quality Control (QAQC) issues. This will lead to an investigation and of course Stop Work Order until issues are resolved. For this, no EOT shall be awarded or granted. Hence, the contractor will have to suspend and halt all works until clearance is given.

5. With these being said, the last issue will be cost from project management point of view. Working at 60% capacity and without the ability of doing just-in-time (JIT) stock will crash the system financially. High cost for human resources, low WIP, increase waiting time, idling of other resources, and of course the excruciating pain in handling interest rate from creditors will actually jeopardize the project. These kind of issues will only provide contractor with a low productivity of maybe 35-45% of typical progress each day.

I am involved in a RM400 million project and the contractor's work program is relatively small and constrained to 3,000 activities. The most important thing about the task would be the importance it render in hold points which is closely related to Inspection and Test Plan. The precedence of activities will highlight the anticipation of all related parties where defaulted party or parties can be hold accountable for delays.

There is no point in some of work program I saw where 24 recurrence activities just for Site Meeting. Will a delay for site meeting substantiate your claim for delay? I will only ensure what are primarily spelled as contractual defaults are captured as activities.

Aside from tasks of such importance, the money and resources which are critical which need to be prorate accordingly or backloaded as it is practice to be captured in work program. So these are keys to a good work program.

RM5 million or RM50 million project, the devil is in the detail. Apart from that, it portray how bad the client want their life to be miserable throughout the contract period. If they want to track bolt and nut, then a work program can reach level 7 or 8. But there comes to a point where substantial tasks are controlled by measuring sheet. At the end of the day a task with resources like 0.05 iron monger and 0.01 carpenter since it is fast job such as installing door knob, it is stupid. it renders the stupidity of the client first, then the contractor. Another example is the recurrence of P&G items which have no significance on monthly or prorate basis. A site meeting expenses tendered for RM20,000 for a period of 20 months and RM 1,000 a month. Will RM 33.33 per day affect you on the 14th day when you are reporting fortnightly?

The discussion on technicality of a work program is good but after doing it for many years, you will try to include tactical approach for contractual benefit. If you are doing the work program in a waterfall manner, it would be more alarming than the amount of tasks.

This post is a scholarly foresight in regards to contractual management discrepancies in two regions (no longer states) in Malaysia, which are Sabah and Sarawak. I will not discuss or vindicate any political issue in regards to both state based on Malaysia Agreement 1963 and Petroleum Act 1974. In this discussion, I will speak about the articulation of a scenario when these two states have their agencies as Superintending Officer or Representative (hereafter known as SOR) and the Client is the Federal Government of Malaysia. Nevertheless, these two acts have very strong impact in JKR Standard Form, 203 and its variants.

What happened if SOR is from the state entity is using their own understanding in legal interpretation to instruct or coerce a certain order for a project under the Federal Government funding (hereafter known as Client)? It would be a deplorable situation to see SOR get subpoenaed as first defendant and implore for leniency in High Court due to negligence or laxity in contractual correspondence. Lackluster in contractual management will be set as punitive for all is not the way forward to establish semi-autonomous regional government bilateral relationship with the Federal Government.

The provisions are made in Form PWD203 and its variants is extremely lopsided and yet to be tailored to fit in a conducive legal application and constitutional where the only acknowledge Federal Law as applicable and reign supreme law for contractual interpretation and a mere compliance of law for state laws and by-laws which allows for notices and fees to be transacted as well as to keep Client indemnified from legal complication.

Imagine if a contractual instruction issued by SOR is not legal as it does not comply with any gazette and somehow against the law of Malaysia? First, this will frustrate the true intent of the contract for all involved parties. This construed the limit of power and authority for SOR which do not cover the legal right to establish a condition by their own interpretation based on SOR’s right to take action or worst, to take legal a standing or libel through correspondence which is not even a writ with legal essences. Second, the event of force majeure which has been established should provide options for both parties to avoid severity of contract breaching or default during this particular period of time. In this case, the Law of Malaysia should take precedence before other laws after an event is notified without prejudice.

There are many existing conditions in the contract form which need to be ironed out in order to ensure applicable law and compliance of law to coexist in federal level and state level. At this moment, this is loosely translated and I see possible lawsuit to be won by contractors. The problem with legal implications in a contractual frustration is that this will not allow for any other resolvent mechanism such as adjudication, mediation and arbitration. This is the basic of constitution we are talking about, not tort.

I have shared a bit in a project management group about these two type of payments which quite common in our country. Of course to many QS, Interim Payment is the way to go for greater accuracy and provide fairness to main contractor in the light of PWD 203 types of contract. Hence, no issue will arise when talking about payment since it is paid based on recommendation and agreed during a joint measurement by all parties and supplemented with all sort of site documentation to establish the accurate of work done physically and financially.

Now, milestone payment is another type of payment where the quantum of payment is very much based on agreed stage of completed work sections or stages. This one is quite vague and can be loosely interpreted in certain type of industry. This kind of payment is quite suitable for waterfall type of planning and work sequence, not your typical building construction way of doing things where agility is key to move things concurrently (that also means, headache when trying to track back EOT and the CPM traces delay(s) caused by critical path at that very time).

Another good reason why milestone payment is introduced into certain project is due to simplicity of the project nature, or worst; the tactical planning involved in cashflow planning.

So it is rather hard to have an overview of the process unless you are tactically trained to sniff the contractual game. Simplicity of a project by using milestone payment will reduce the need of employing QS and project control department which for me is rather lame since any engineer can actually do quite accurate valuation based on work done on site since all dimension is measurable.

The tactical part is the game played by client or the main alliance of a development which try to take every single advantage for every single parcel within the development scheme to squeeze out and inflate their credit facility by stages instead of pro-rate. This reduces the pro-rate for interest for every month with unutilized or under utilized credit facility with certain low payment quantity. This means saving in million of dollar per month for projects worth billions around the world.

Now things does not stop there. The game can go into a much complicated and in a grand scheme where milestone payment ties the contractor or subcontractor to variation order details. In such heinous scheme, addition variation can only be discussed in final account if it surpasses 10% of variation for every milestone and omission variation is paid accordingly and remaining unclaimed monies shall be use for any addition variation order during final account.

I hope this particular entry can assist you in the future when deciding on a project during ITB. If it says milestone, be ready for a mild stroke if you forget to request for clarification for addenda in this particular issue.

For me, the best way to break down a project into milestones would be through projected WBS, at least Level 6 for project which worth more than a billion dollar and more than 20 parcels or Level 4 for a small 20 million dollar project. Always bring Technical Clarification Meeting mainly in oil & gas industry into an overtime by pushing them to agree on your milestones proposal based on your work program. Else, you will forfeit your chance to finalize what will be a proper contract document with only 4 dumb milestones for 20 million dollar project with half a million dollar discount for the client. Always win your credit facility earning to offset the discount you have given to the client.

The Malaysian cases are very clear on the effect of section 75 of the Contracts Act, ie. in every case where a sum is named in a contract as the amount to be paid in case of breach, such sum is to be treated as a penalty. The leading case on section 75 is the Federal Court’s decision in Selva Kumar a/l Murugiah v Thiagarajah a/l Retnasamy (1995) (‘Murugiah’). In Murugiah, the Federal Court made it clear that:

• section 75 deems a liquidated damages clause to be penal and therefore invalid (except as a ceiling for recovery). Accordingly, any sum expressed as liquidated damages cannot, in and of itself, be automatically recovered by the injured party;

• even if a contract contained a liquidated damages clause, an injured party must still prove his actual loss;

• if owing to ‘a lack of an established measure of damages’, an injured party found it difficult to prove his actual loss, his claim would not fail. Instead, section 75 would permit him to recover ‘reasonable compensation’ (ie, a sum which is ‘reasonable and fair according to the court’s good sense and fair play’) capped at the value of the sum expressed as liquidated damages; and

• the relevant words in section 75 which permit an injured party to obtain recovery - despite being unable to prove his actual loss - are the words, ‘whether or not actual damage or loss is proved to have been caused thereby’.

If everything went as scripted by the Federal Court in Murugiah, contractors would have rejoiced and employers would have endured sleepless nights. For employers, the Murugiah case could not have come at a worse time. With projects becoming increasingly complex - and hence, more susceptible to delay - the inability to rely on a liquidated damages clause and the corresponding requirement of having to prove actual loss was a daunting prospect. They thus began amending their liquidated damages clauses to try to circumvent the Murugiah ruling concerning actual proof. Sensing this discomfort, the lower courts in Malaysia also struggled to find a way around the Murugiah ruling which was binding on them.

At the end of the day, while it goes without saying that the current judicial movement upholds the sanctity of contract, this consequently prompts careful consideration when drafting LAD clauses specifically in major construction contracts in view of Cubic. Hence, gleaning from a practical standpoint, there are several key takeaways when drafting LAD clauses:

. Ensuring the stipulated sum in the LAD clause is proportionate with the contract sum and is not exorbitant;

. Ensuring the wordings of the LAD clause is not unconscionable;

. Although the obligation of proving actual loss has been dispensed with, it is still prudent practice to justify the reasonableness of the LAD clause by proving evidence of “actual loss”;

. It is prudent construction practice to keep documentation and records of extra-costs incurred to justify damage suffered by virtue of the contractor’s breach/delay;

. Ensuring record of the basis of quantification to substantiate the reasonableness of the LAD stipulation;

. Contractors should also be prudent to estimate the appropriate completion date/milestone to complete works in the construction contract as it has direct implication with the Employer’s entitlement to LAD; and

. Contractors should ensure that the grounds for extension of time provisions in the construction contract are unambiguous and clear as it has direct implication with the Employer’s entitlement to LAD.

It has been a while since I played contractual game and most of these issues are about to be deleted from my memory. I will only use these two clauses for some of my tactical planning work for exclusive clients. So here is a short write-up about both clauses in JKR Form 203 and Form 203A.

First of all, before we enter into the agreement, all parties should understand the concept of "True Intent" which binds the whole covenant as mutually explanatory for all the avoidance of discrepancies and divergence which may frustrates the original contract. The lack of Instructions by Client is not deem valid if the Contractor acted badly by sitting on the issue or showed negligence.

Two, the contract always end with time where time is of the essence of any agreement and time should take precedence for instruction(s) and reason(s).

Contractual game is an interesting game but one have to be smart and tactical enough when playing it. Showcasing outright ill intention and deep-rooted prejudice will not bring the Contractor anything good or even relieve the Contractor from his duties and discharging his obligations. In case Contractors forgot about their main duty, it would be to indemnify the Client at all time, which mean the Contractor shall be a partner and forefront of the Project in a professional manner.

Now, the case is about a Contractor who is trying to win loss and expense after granted extension of time by the client. Can the Contractor be paid for the loss of his time? It depends.

Loss and expense can only be granted if it fits certain caveats highlighted in the following paragraphs.

a) The main obligation the Contractor should perform is to notify through writing in event where certain factor(s) or event(s) (usually in the CPM) which lead to unforeseen possible delays to justify their EOT submission as well as THE HIGHLIGHT OF INCURRED COST DURING THE DELAY and to DISPLAY POSSIBLE DELAY TIME AND COST BY DAYS IN A WORK PROGRAM. The Contractor also should demonstrate the cost of delays through Schedule of Rate and where needed, to breakdown rate or price or cost.

b) If evidence cannot be produced within one month, it is good enough that the Contractor just send in a notice and subsequently furnish with supporting documents and dossiers as mentioned in the paragraph above. Contractor should also notify the Client on their intention for EOT only or both EOT and L&E. Failure to this may disqualify the Contractor from claiming incurred cost under L&E. Similar to EOT, Contractor should notify the Client in one calendar month. Final submission for L&E can be done after the completion of the project when finalizing the Final Account.

c) L&E can only be considered due to the followings;-

(i) Suspension of Works by the Client unless the Contractor failed to protect, store and secure works from deterioration; or to take necessary action to mitigate expenses incurred.

(ii) The Contractor discharged his obligation during a dispute due to neighboring owners - as long it is not the fault of himself, sub-contractor(s) or NSC.

(iii) Delay of Instructions provided that is not issued due to any act, negligence or default by the Contractor and co. Apart from that if Instruction was relayed late or not received in due time.

(iv) Delays in unavoidable or unforeseen or not catered for due to the delays by third party engaged by the Client.

It is dire important that the Contractor should stand true to the original intention of the Contract and properly relay notice(s) in order to be entitled for claims, both EOT and L&E. 

Doc Syed came up with a very good question for streetwise project management. Engineers; i riddle you this.

"When the initial duration of the project duration is not possible, what should the Project Manager do?"

Conventional options: 

A. Explain to the top management why it is not possible immediately when you get the project, why the duration is not possible

B. Accept the project and just work on it until near the end, then look for a reason why it cannot be finished on time

C. Don't accept to be the PM of the project.

In actual fact, none of these options are wrong. For me personally, i will not except the post and let myself be headhunted and involved with sound and proper project.

But as working class, most of you will go for option A and get screwed by your boss. You are asking for it by doing this since you have no back up plan. For smart assholes, you will go with option B and keep you good and cool salary. Usually, option B is for those who have experience and will try to tweak.

I did personally tweak option A and make it option B. In order to do so, you must be very well versed with the contract. Planning in this scenario is no longer technical; it is now tactical. I did this when handling international organization 6 years ago.

Knowing the project need to be completed in given time, the tenderer will just go on without rational thought and hit the desired time frame. When the contract is awarded, everyone looks like they are screwed. I somehow laid my plans and compose activities with resource loaded and play along with extension of time (EOT) clauses and even insert lost and expenses (L&E) clauses as my negotiation chip. These are pre-planned and carefully composed through several work breakdown structures (WBS).

The thing that many contractors are not aware is the tight schedule for client-side planners to review your work program as they are trying to beat the time frame to bind a contract. Knowing that the work program is a dossier annexed to the contract, the baseline is fixed; whatever is inserted inside is considered schedule basis memorandum (SBM). Baited and hooked, the work program now is a covenant which is a basis for EOT and L&E and the resource loaded means, the client are now in firing line if they drag the critical path. Most enjoyable if 3rd parties delayed the work which registered as government-related tradesmen.

Before tactically assemble your work program, one must understand the sequencing and aesthetically compose the realistic scenarios of activities; convincingly. Second, you ought to track and play the game and initiate all sort of issues or tweak your dramas and drag client resources (in this case management) to be held responsible for any delay. Every delay are accountable, documented and presented as the project progress. As we all know, not all initiated dramas will hit the targeted extension, thus you have to constantly arrange in a way a mitigation plan and carry on with moving targeted completion date.

There are more but as for now, to be street smart, this is the fundamental strategies when you are caught in such scenario. Of course, the gist of this strategy is to acquire more time and keeping financial impact low. You wouldn't want the client to scrap the project before the s-curve start to enter the exponential curvature right?

Another option is only available if you are involved with EPCC or design and build. You can change approach by amending the engineering components and methods to fit the time frame without affecting the procurement or cost. 

Many contractors will jump into overtime (OT) to cover delays in their project. For many professional planners, OT is not the best way to crash resources and ensure your productivity leads to the convergence of your progress graph with the baseline curve.

Main reason for reduction in production with the increase of resources is very much caused by immobility. Unlike factory, construction is very unique. Without proper lighting and underpowered luminaires, work slows down due to reduced visibility and confined into areas where work is visible to avoid accident.

When confinement and immobility are in place, it is similar to production theory for diminishing returns of scale.

The best way to increase is to look at your resources graph and choose the appropriate phase to increase resources by a few gangs close to the spiking need of additional resources. Second, take a look at the possible idling or allowed lagging where these resources can be leveraged to the affected section of work.

You cannot get up one day and increase resources for a week and discharge them. Be realistic

Recently, there is a thread which growing with enthusiasts looking forward about agile or scrum project management. It is useful for software development, but for construction? For me, agile or scrum (known hereafter as scrum) project management is a fancy name or a marketing niche for PMI to promote the second tier in project management after their PMP program, or worst; a definite term as micromanagement. None would want to be involved in micromanagement especially when we put management into its retrospective which is so often filled with bureaucracy, paperwork nonsense and needless responsibilities.

I reckon the conservative construction project management as the most agile project management. It crosses the demarcation of agility within project management. The word agile itself is self-explanatory which emphasizes the ability to adapt into conditions which are not routinely performed. Nevertheless, the artifacts within scrum project management still remain conservative involving routines.

The introduction of sprint backlog is nothing more than a section or part of a product backlog (work breakdown structure; WBS) of a conventional work program in gantt chart format which a scrum masters or a project manager will dictate in order to complete critical task. The conventional work program allows you to do similar action when we look at the critical path to clear impediments to the overall progress. Better, conventional work programs which run on monte carlo simulation will assist better with graphical aid and considers provided slack and lag.

Overall, the introduction of scrum bring a new whole level of slavery where members of a project will have to provide their own burndown chart in order to commit and time their delivery. This burndown chart is indeed a waste of time when it comes to its efficiency. The time used to estimate productivity itself is a wastage and imagine doing it in daily basis. Secondly, you have to consider possible risk or slack in every sprint and lastly, each sprint maybe useful once if projects are highly customized, depending on client briefs and requirements.

I still hold to the conventional planning and project management. Project managers are agile when he can detect or trace opportunities when he understood the relationships among tasks within his work program. The critical path suffice the need for any micromanagement and leveraging of resources when it comes to mitigation plan or when you are replenish with resources to crash ahead.

In project management, fanciful terms have no significance. It is the overall result and the process delivery. Have you ever wonder why some 'ah peks' can fast track while those accredited PMP can't? It is all about the experience you have when encountering problems and that particular god called money.

You might want to learn the appropriate terminologies before going online and look impressive like a senior in construction industry. Let's talk about types of payment and types of construction.

There are two types of payment; interim or progress payment and milestone payment. Interim payment is payment made progressively as per evaluation or measured on physical achievement as well as financial achievement monthly or weekly. This payment type is usually used by most contract forms ranging a typical JKR 203 form and its variations, PAM, CIDB and even FIDIC.

Milestone payment on the other hand is a simplified type of payment where payment only made based on the achieved milestones which are agreed initially when entering a contract. The setting of milestones can be very generic when it comes to simple structures or customized when it comes to engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) type of contract and it can be binded in various contract forms as mentioned above.

Before you run rampage talking about SSER without having fundamental knowledge which make you can look a little stupid, it is better to understand the actual concept of milestone payment rather than making reference to the interim payment type.

Of course you are not wrong when you raise the issue on 80% payment when progress is under 15% since most milestone have physical-finance difference up to 40% of the project value.

Before making any further comment, try to retrieve their contract document and check the actual project milestones to their progress. Milestones payment does not mean payment have to be paid according to physical (construction) progress and may put precedence on engineering and procurement in EPCC type of construction. Nevertheless, almost all milestone payment constructions indicate more percentage of work done than payment made.

1. Resource Graph is one of the most important indicators for your planning or project. It highlights the availability of your resources and to ensure that your resources (manpower and machinery) do not go overboard or over allocated.

2. The over allocated indicator is one way to show possible occurance for overtime or the need to add additional resources. This mean that your existing allocated resource may not be sufficient. This is essential in the earlier stage of your planning in order to weigh if your planning is realistic/pragmatic or unrealistic.

3. It is pragmatic to level your resources by either increasing the duration (which may lapse contract duration) of the task or to shift (by changing relationship and predecessor) and execute task which requires similar resource(s) when there are available floats or total float as long as the task will not lead to possible duress in progress or within the critical path. In short, tweak activities with shared resources until one of the activities have allowance for a split. This may need some experience. The crux to such action is to allow you to have flexibility without the need to conduct automated or manual resource leveling.

4. Another reason for you to review this graph is to ensure the planned work program can be achieved with existing resources within the essence of time agreed in the contract or you may need to consult your superior to request for additional resources in order to achieved the planned work program and scheduled duration.

5. Resource is one of the main components in construction which is closely related to cost. Increasing resources may deem to be efficient periodically but it may not be the best tactical financial move for the whole project especially when some of your resources are idling at certain stage/phase of the project. Your organization incurred additional cost without productivity and therefore this will reduce (or not optimizing) profit. Additional cost can be translated as additional charges for credit facility interest.

This also ties down to your organization's recruitment process and availability of resources within the vicinity of the project . You cannot recruit workers and lay them off in between months or weeks especially with activities which require high level of skill or specialty.

6. Apart from leveling resources within a project, resources can be leveled among projects. This practice of resource sharing is much tedious, meticulous and requires great length or coordination to orchestrate compare to leveling resources within a project. Secondly, this may be limited for certain software and it may get complicated when the calendar is different; considering in our country we have a week starting on Monday and on Sunday for certain state.

7. I hope this will give you a good and basic insight about resources in project planning.

The contract document is anything but a sacred dossier which is a taboo to discuss. For professionals like myself, i often trigger or activate clause(s) of contract for clarification and validation. Regardless in which ever party you are in for a contract binding, the game remain the same.

2.0 So what takes precedence of a contract document? It depends on the contract form you are using as Condition of Contract (CoC). Let us look at two generic forms; PWD 203 and PWD 203A. The main difference between both is the prevalence of either standard drawings and specifications (203) or Bill of Quantities (203A). In such arrangement, at the preamble of the CoC plays the important role in validating the importance of each document based on hierarchy of the Contract Document.

3.0 Based on Clause 1.1(b) for PWD 203, Contract drawings and specification does not take precedence directly in any order or hierarchy and is render as complementary to one another. The same goes with Clause 1.1(b) for PWD 203A.

4.0 Subsequently, the explanation in Clause 8: Contract Documents does not emphasize on hierarchy of either the Drawings and Specifications or Bill of Quantity. The only additional requirements for PWD 203 are the specifications, unpriced provisional bill of quantities and schedule of rates, while PWD 203A emphasized on priced Bill of Quantity.

5.0 The precedence for these forms only prevail in Clause 25: Valuation of Variation and 26: Summary of Tender (for 203) or Bill of Quantities (for 203A).

6.0 Both tender forms compliment their Clause 8 through validated actions by the use of contract drawings and/or the specifications in explaining and amplifying the true meaning or intent of the contract in order to complete work accordingly as long as it does not impose any obligation beyond those imposed by CoC. In this case, the use of drawings and/or specifications is/are justified and the calculation for variation of works shall be mediated through Clause 25 and 26 respectively.

7.1 Now, in certain cases where CoC was revised to fit certain project delivery mechanism, the context or even the pretext of contract is spelled out clearly in the preambles in Clause 1 in regards to precedence of annexed contract documents. For cost controlling, the customized contract form will reflect closely to the PWD 203A.

7..2 Can these be challenged? Yes, all of these can be challenged if it is proven that the Contract Documents are insufficient, where;

a. This is clearly highlight under the term of mutually explanatory of each other unless sole or exclusivity is spelled out in this sub-clause. 

b. Second challenge or exploit shall be the term or definition "proper execution of Works until its completion according to the true intent and meaning of this Contract taken together whether the true intent and meaning may or may not be particularly shown or described PROVIDED THAT it can be reasonably inferred therefrom.

c. Third challenge or exploit comes from discrepancy in or divergence between any two or more of them PROVIDED ALWAYS that such discrepancy or divergence shall not vitiate this contract.

d1. Fourth challenge is out of the clause for contract sufficiency when taking on specifications. This is closely related to contract clause 21: Compliance with the Law. In this case, "contractor should comply in all respects (including the giving of all notices) with any law, regulation or by-laws, or any order or directive issued by any public authority or public service company (hereinafter referred as "Statutory Requirements"), relating to the Works or, in the case of public.." Shall there be any change or amendment in any written law, regulations and by-laws which necessitates any variation to the works, a written notice should be made. 

d2.In addition to this clause would be Clause 10: Obligation of the Contractor; where the highlight [10.1(f)] to change should keep the [10.1(e)] Government/Client indemnified by [10.1(b)] performing the works in a proper manner and in accordance with good management practices, and exercising professional judgment and practice, requisite skill, care and diligence [10.1(d)]. Without prejudice, the party have also discharged their obligation appropriately [10.1(d)].

8.0 Therefore, you can definitely challenge the precedence of documents within the Contract Documents through the CoC which takes higher precedence than any other annexed supporting document. Regardless of what the preambles referred to or rendered, CoC shall be read in the light or in conjunction with other annexed documents. There is no such thing as fixed definition when triggering the precedence of the contract. 

I am quite accustomed and also saddened with the practices of the construction industry where most of the specifications attached to the contract or covenant often outdated. So what is the importance of specifications?

Specifications is the part of the contract instruction which forms the standard requirements in accepting completed job/task or work-in-progress. It is essential to build the accurate and applicable inspection and test plan (ITP). The wrong grading or zoning of course aggregates and fine aggregates will lead to rejection of materials, or worst dismantling of a completed task. This mean the whole stockpile of these materials shall not be accepted for any part of the job. MS 1195:1991 is no longer applicable (as it is based on BS8110:1991 superseded by BS8110:1997 + addendum) and was not replaced by any MS in accordance to BS 8110:1997 onward or BS EN 1992/EC2. Instead, the current standard criteria for concrete is dictate by MS EN 206:2016 which is a direct adoption of BS EN 206:2013; moreover an obsolete specification since the latest one supposedly be BS EN 206:2016.

Secondly, it plays important role in procurement where obsolete specification will make it difficult for contractors to procure materials which are no longer available in the market. Say, you are using the old standard specification for main steel bar, you will not be able to find HT steel bar with grade 460 since the market now only provide grade 500A/B/C, not only increase in strength but ductility capability. Changes to specification also states that mild steel is no longer applicable as nominal links for structural concrete. 

Remarks/Read: BS 4449:1997, BS 4449:2005, BS 4449:2005+A2:2009, MS 144:2006, MS146:2006, MS 144:2014 and MS146:2014.

So, what is the leeway when this occurred in your project? It depends on what kind of contract form you are using. In this case I will discuss about government project and form PWD203/203A. I will leave out CIDB, PAM and FIDIC contract forms.

What happened if specifications are outdated? Most of the government contract forms will annex the Standard Specification for Building Works (SSBW). In case there are addenda or addendum made for specification(s), then any parties can raise up query or queries based on the following clauses available in the annexed standard specification. Nothing is mentioned about precedence of specifications in Condition of Contract form. However, it is clearly spelled in specification where;

SSBW and SSRW (Road Works) clearly stated this in;

SSRW Clause 1.3.1(iii) - "All standards and Codes of Practice referred to in this Specification shall be deemed to be the editions current at the time of Tender. If the Malaysian Standard exists, which the SO deems to be equivalent to the British or other Standard specified, then the Malaysia Standard shall be followed. In provision within the relevant Standards or Codes of Practice as mentioned in this Specification, then the provision of this specification shall take precedence."

SSBW 2014 Clause 3.1 - "Specification together with any addenda issued shall be deemed to be the editions current at the time of Tender. If the Malaysian Standard (MS) exists, which the S.O. deems to be equivalent to the British or other Standard specified, then the MS shall be followed. Other equivalent standards specifying superior material may be used with the approval of the S.O."

At the same time, clarification should be made to fulfill Clause 3.2 where, In the event of any discrepancy between the provision of this Specification and the provision within the relevant Standards or Codes of Practice (CP) as mentioned in this Specification, then the provision of this Specification shall take precedence.

Therefore, it is essential for those who are in QAQC to review the validity of specifications annexed to the contract documents. You have to remember, any changes and removal of work shall be incurred by contractor. If you failed to see the importance of specification in your contract, expect prolonged issues throughout your project physical phase. 

1. A work program looks impressive if it has the right and tidy layout. It would be most impressive if it has close to 2000 activities and Level 8 WBS. This probably will impress many especially client but not for me. For me, these are aesthetics and have not much impact on the desired planning and result.

2. The first thing i do before i waste my time on tracking the sequences of each activities, i always take a good feel of the work program. I generate visual reports and start to look at the leveraging of resources. Secondly, i take a look at the cash flow or the financial s-curve.

3. These two reports tell a lot about the contractor's planning department and the characteristics of the project manager (PM). There is no point to have a PMP accreditation if a PM don't even know how to organize cash and resources.

4. Rule of thumbs: S-curves are not supposed to look like 'S's. Yes, 'S's will hit the asses. That is a curve which fits a development phase with NPB phase. A physical construction stage, the curve should be as linear as can be and nothing close to exponential type of graph. The reason behind this to ensure the full utilization of credit facilities to 80-90%, proper drawdowns and what soever related to cashflow. This will ensure optimization of credit facilities with 10-20% reserves for purchase, credit notes and contingencies.

we can be blown away with the level of incompetency of many construction contract administrators in the government sector when it comes to work program. This goes to engineers, quantity surveyors and architects as well in the private sector who have the fair share of making comments for a work program of a project.

1. Work program is a planned approach where the financial distribution is not exclusively tabulated based on bills of quantities. It is derived from or based on the bill of quantity and can be deposited into appropriate activities and sequences. With that been said, it can be either combination or splitting the financial sum from a bill into each level of activities in order to render physical progress.

2. Not every activity will have its dominant presence in bill of quantity as in the work program. Testing and Commissioning is the holding point and a critical path of a project where cost are extracted from various bills. There is no dedicated bill in a contract which specifies only testing and commissioning cost. All are included or inserted into various bills which need to be extracted and form a T&C WBS.

3. Not every petty details are included into a conventional level 5 work program. Some are retained in measurement sheets/schedules which are derived based on itemized entity in the bill for measuring work completed based on work done versus work required in the bill with rates as agreed in the bill. Nevertheless, this assist the summation of the key activities in the work program. This again depends on contract form you have decided; either a PWD203 or PWD203A. Bill of Quantity or drawing and specifications. Some administrators don't even know the difference, how would you be strategic enough to use clause 25 and 26 of the contract form to administrate and going around with variation order(s) and evil trickery of the contractor?

3a. Why would you breakdown a bolt and a nut task when both go in tandem with a work program and can be lumped together? Reinforcements and concrete in structural bills often lump everything together while work program divides it accordingly based on level or storey of each building. For that good reason why it is divided to monitor physical progress rather than financial progress of itemized entity from a bill.

4. When some administrators talk about this and that in jargon, usually they have no idea about Schedule Basis memorandum and Project Execution Plan. We planners are taking the burden to configure a method which is easy and here comes bunch of smart people trying to complicate project.

5. If you are really concern about the project, tracking is the only way. Tracking the Gantt chart with Monte Carlo simulation makes it easier until you are facing progress issue and performance at site. You can even simplify problem at site by using the Pareto rules by sorting out 20% of the mess at site which resorting to 80% problem at site before deciding in resources crashing in order to remedy the project delay.

6. In any case if your project worth more than RM200 million and life threatening, we can talk about Spearman or Pearson statistical distribution, Latin hypercube sampling and iteration, risk aversion on individual task or resources using beta distribution and what ever tools that we have. We can even conduct risk analysis and draw you fishbone or tripod beta illustrations if we need to. But why complicate things that is easy like rising a low rise building? 

Part I - Inclement of Weather in Contract

A friend just texted me and ask me about provision for extension of time in regards to inclement of weather. So, let us review what the JKR contract form (203, 203A, 203N and 203P) mentioned specifically on weather.

1. Both 203 and 203A forms only mentioned once about inclement weather under contract clause 43 - Delay and Extension of time under sub-clause 43.1(b).

2. As for 203N form, nominated sub-contractor delays is subjected to main contractor covenant with client through 203A. The crux to this decision is based on critical path which affects the main contractor in which will affect the nominated sub-contractor working area and access. Nominated suppliers which join in the contract through form 203P will not be entitled for any inclement of weather. You are fabricating and manufacturing under the shade.

3. So how inclement of weather links to extension of time? Is there any sort of formality or informal way to calculate and inform the superintending officer (SO) about possible delay? When we refer to contract form 203 or 203A, it is suffice to provide supporting documents and relevant references to enable SO or his delegates to form an opinion as to the cause and calculation of the delay.

4. The norm which JKR usually accept is to compare the rainy days recorded in site diary to the weather record produced by the meteorological department and then compare if there is a sudden or extreme or exceptional inclement of weather comparing to previous years. It is a simplistic approach to be frank but it works however this hardly grant additional working days. From experience, this way will only leave most contractors with 1 month of extension of time. (Remarks: hardly my best choice in manipulating clause 43 as a whole. I prefer to use other sub-clauses and tactically insert it into work program for clause 43 exploits. Further to that, most clients' SO and their representative are not well verse with technicality of such important dossier in the overall contract administration)

5. When comparing previous weather record, contract administrator should try to justify if any of the annual record of heavy downpour is due to extreme phenomena. This occurrence of extreme inclement is likely due to "el nino" or "la nina". In the tropics, we are mo concern about "la nina" event which causes heavy rain and possible flooding. After identifying the year affected by this phenomena, the rainfall record should be eliminated from being compared as it stands as abnormal inclement of weather and should not be the basis for any comparison. In case of "el nino" occurrence, it is hard to claim for any extension of time although workers' performance may dipped and are in danger of heat stroke; contractor should allow contingency of additional workers if progress is hampered by these setbacks through resources crashing to remedy project delay.

6. In actual fact, delay of the project shouldn't be determined as mentioned earlier. Delay should also come with tabulation of activities to risk associated and sensitivity of activities involved involving water. This should be included in method statement for government projects or schedule basis memorandum for larger scale projects or oil & gas projects. With this tabulation or matrix, we can justify impact of rainy days to our our project. 

For example, 

a) A rainy day will not affect only affect geotechnical works for one day, it may prolonged if it involves with pore water pressure and water table when it comes to slope stability when working in confined space. Apart from that, the time required for de-watering works and to have water to reach equilibrium and working with ground/soil in at-rest condition.

b) Working in a site which have high water table is proven to be an individual case which contractor can justify - avoiding lost of life and nuisance caused toward the public.

6a. When submitting, always carry out simulation of such delay. One gantt chart is only as good as a baseline. It doesn't indicate anything except that the planned activity is in the critical path or not and if there is additional float for the activity. By simulating, both of these will change. Critical path is not something dead, it changes as we track on the project. Where possible, submit the simulation based on delay of each task with possible risk (it is good to indicate based on 20% percentile and 80% percentile) and best case scenario based on the matrix i mentioned earlier in order to have an indicative but reflective simulation.

7. Further to that, the granting of extension of time for weather inclement can be affected by other issues entitled under clause 43. If both runs parallel or concurrently at the same point of time, both shall be granted the amount of days depending on calendar date and not cumulative days.

8. The followings are considerations by SO and his rep(s) when considering overall extension of time claim;

a) Records and Contract Provisions - Actual facts and record are critical; Programs and notices should not be ignored or left

b) Sequence of works - The order in which works logically have to take place

c) Critical paths - Those items which must be completed in a certain order

d) Use of float time - Spare time / capacity in the programs between critical events; Over estimation of activity durations

e) Ownership of float - As a general rule, the party which needs it uses it

f) Mitigation measures undertaken by contractor - Limitation of actual delay impact; Contractor must progress work diligently

g) Contractual duties - Contractor must limit the impact of any delay; S.O / P.D. should grant extension of time as the works progress, wherever possible

h) Concurrency - A number of competing connected events; A number of unrelated events occurring at the same time

i) Dominant cause - The event which really causes the delay; Usually determined by using as-built programs / critical path analysis

9. However, the most important essence in the contract which the contractor have to fulfill in order to entitle this "gift" is to ensure that notice is given accordingly. Contractually, the contractor have to serve notice to client within 30 days from such event with/without projection of period it involves and the level of aggravation on how such weather affects the activities within the contract physically and financially. For lost and expenses, contractor is permitted to submit claims no later than 90 days after the project is practically completed.

10. Contractor should also display efforts within their capacity (have worked diligently) and with due care in trying to overcome such delay(s).

11. There are many ways to justify your ground for additional time for the project as long as you are diligent enough to have enough evidence, forms proper quantum of delay and its effect(s) and render the best effort to remedy possible delay and keeping client indemnified throughout the whole time.

Part II  Extension of Time (An extended review)

This article is (relatively and) exceptionally good for those who are new in contract management as the author is someone who is specialized in contract. The discussion is concise and is a good cross reference to the article i authored (you can refer to Part I of this post.)

(1) Nevertheless, how do you work with your lawyer to neutralize the reference of cases as stated in this article in arguments? There are ways to go around terminologies of force majeure and exceptional inclement weather? Let us go through the two clauses which are crucial in fighting for your deserving extension of time. Kindly cross-refer to my article for details on weather inclement.

(1a) Clause 42 - Delay and Extension of time

43.1 upon it becoming reasonably apparent that the progress of the worked is delayed, the contractor shall forthwith give written notice to the officer named in Appendix as to the causes of delay and relevant information...under this clause due to any or more of the following events:

43.1(a) force majeure

43.1(b) exceptionally inclement weather

Provided that all such delays are not due to any act, negligence, default or breach of contract by the nominated sub-contractor (NSC) and/or Nominated supplier (NS) and/or the contractor, or any of the servants or agents of such NSC or NS or the contractor.

(1b) Clause 57 - Effect of Force Majeure

57.1 Neither the Government nor the Contractor shall be in breach of its obligation under this contract if it is unable to perform its obligation under this contract, other than the payment obligation as a result of the occurrence of an event of force majeure.

57.2 (c) natural catastrophe including but not limited to earthquakes, floods, subterranean spontaneous combustion or any operation of the forces of nature against which an experienced contractor could not reasonably have been expected to take precautions.

57.4 If either party considers the event of force majeure to be of such severity or to be continuing for such period of time that it effectively frustrates the original intention of this contract, then the parties may agree that this contract may be terminated upon mutual agreement of the parties.

57.6 Neither party shall be entitled to rely upon the provision above if both parties reasonably determine that an event of force majeure has not occurred.

57.7 For avoidance of doubt, the parties shall continue to perform those part of those obligations not affected, delayed or interrupted by an event of force majeure and such obligations shall, pending the outcome of this clause continue in full force and effect.

(2) Now, in order to support your extension of time (EOT), the utilizing solely on clause 43.1(b) is the weakest reason for client admission and granting of EOT and weather is quite objective as it compares to previous years' data. The technicality of utilizing clause 57 needs a very good defense, call for bluffs and most importantly, the binding of documents that forms the contract. How does binding of this take effect? I will explain briefly.

(3) The attachment of these dossiers as part of the contract binding is very tactical as the supplementary paperwork will not be treated as bindings. Somehow, there is a leeway in most government contract. To most contract administrator in government contract, they are not so fond about planning and work program. In order to upheld the definition of "true intent of the contract", contractor should furnish work program in a larger document namely project execution plan (PEP) or Schedule Basis Memorandum (SBM) which includes work program which sets the possible technical or engineering details on rainfall or inclement and the outcome from such event. (Refer to my article section 5, 6 and 7) and Bina Puri Sdn. Bhd. vs. MUI Continental Insurance Berhad case cited in this article. Always argue based on intensity of each rainfall rather than total rainfall for the month. Guide the judge with summarized engineering hazard to rainfall intensity instead of furnishing everything. He is a human and you need to shade and share important issue(s). No one wins court case with bulk of documents which aren't useful for interpretation.

(4) By doing this, the court is confident of the contractors and the due diligent which have been conducted during site visit and post-contracting phase and this will neutralize clause 57.4 and 57.6. This signals that force majeure (eg. La Nina which contributes to heavy rain and beyond our control) happened but this does not severe the continuing progress as cited in clause 57.3 and 57.4 which entitled for clause 43.1(a).

(5) The use of La Nina is exclusively to neutralize the determination of the magnitude of an event which is beyond our speculation, unlike the use of rain precipitation. Secondly, this is useful since it renders acceptance of cyclic event but not annual event like precipitation. The way precipitation is use in contract is very much stone age approach which take into consideration the overall rainfall for many years and cyclic is not considered. Cyclic consideration is important which have been missed out in clause 43.1(b) and therefore the utilization of 43.1(a) give more flexibility in determining the causation of natural disaster. Take into consideration on earthquake events. Will this cyclic events be measured in a way like precipitation? No. It is and independent event. In this case, the application for extension of time should sound like this, "exceptional rainfall due to la nina" instead of "monthly site weather chart".

(6) Hopefully with this short and brief article, you can see how contract should be use and how it was manipulated when there is lack of understanding when administrating it.

1. There was an interesting but short discussion in one of the threads in my post about project planning in Malaysia. It was an interesting discourse of opinions.

2. Project management is very subjective and the styling depends on school of thought. There is no specific way to determine the sequence when constructing a project, however it should make sense and constructable within the allowed time frame.

3. What are the school of thoughts in project management? It depends on what is the focus when a project manager or project planner plans a project sequence. Engineers by trade mostly will ensure the sequence is appropriate based on drawings. Quantity surveyors have different approach whereby a project should be completed with cost saving in mind.

4. A learned project manager or planner approach it in a different manner. It depends on what the client need, technical need and financial need. The client need is usually is relatively close to financial need. The loading of each activity and phase have significance on the cashflow budget and taking into consideration on NPV, IRR, credit facilities' interest and limit, and value management.

5. Client need considerations depend on the site condition, operation size, construction risks and outsourcing terms. This usually tie down to financial dispersion in procurement unit(s) and sequencing/coordination at site. Storage size will determine the availability for stockyard space and the possibility in adopting the just-in-time approach for constant use raw materials or work-in-progress (if using IBS techniques). Operation size and outsourcing will determine the availability of resources and possible leveraging and crashing. Construction risks are risks when sequencing and erecting. It can be technical acts eg. involving static, dynamic and temporary load(s) during construction phase. Apart from that, general acts which are safety related.

6. Although these are rarely portrayed in the work program, these are premeditated considerations for sequential activities which formed a formal modus operandi for contract dossier or privately controlled and working plan.

7. Some other considerations which may differ from project are the cost loading, where some are in milestone basis and payment is not in pro-rated, unlike in most conventional projects which opt for progressive or interim payment type where cost can be spread.

8. Resources distribution is unique where rates are usually different from one place to another but the productivity rate should be rational.

9. Time is of the essence and that is the fundamental of every project, regardless of the level of uniqueness. Nevertheless, it is essential to check the critical path to ensure that the rational of critical activities are justified and controlled or scrutinized periodically.

10. When project risks are identified during the initial stage of the project, it should be handled carefully. Each stage of activities have their set of risks which should be eliminated or controlled. Each risk have their own time frame to resolved and it should be micromanaged.

11. Therefore in this stage of micromanagement, the agile project management techniques can be deployed with set of sprints which form level 6 and level 7 (since most work program are developed until level 5). Risk duration is usually quite a complicated process where it can be assess in risk management software by having each activity's risk based on statistical distribution graph with slight change to the level of skewness and kurtosis. In this case, for worst case scenario, the sigma value can be at 1.64 or any value which is predetermined that may fit the possible duration.

12. Pareto principle is another tool which can be utilize when trying to focus on main risks and/or project disruptions. Tripod-beta technique can be deploy for mitigating risk of an event for micromanagement phase.

13. At the end of the day, project planning is very subjective but with one vision; that is to complete the project within given time, given quality, and given cost. 

Contract Form PWD 203A binds the Government and the Contractor to the true intent of the Contract as tendered physically and financially. In construction management, both are stakeholders. The Contract Document is a covenant that put both desirous parties into legal terms and conditions to complete tasks appropriately and more often observes time is of the essence, aside from physical and financial limits, terms and conditions.

1. In such condition, both have expressed and accepted their bargains and limits to the true intent of the contract. Contractual Document can never be a lie detector to ensure that both parties will play their roles to the true intent in order to complete the works as stipulated in the covenant.

2. Therefore, without prejudice; both parties that signed the covenant are willing to undertake task in completing the contract (to the true intent). In return, the Contractor will oblige to acts, laws, regulations, statutory requirements and continue to indemnify the Government. These obligations are stated in Clause of Contract 10.0 of the said Contract Form.

3. Nevertheless, in some conditions, the Contractor may not be diligent in their undertaking to execute works and possibly fraudulent instead of being professional. Therefore, the Government is not in place to be fully blamed (as many other international business ventures and contracts failed during the period of time in executing their obligations), instead to mediate and to conduct damage control to ensure the Government will not be in the losing end. Among the damage control would be; 

(a) from holding the interim payment valuation for substandard works or non-conforming works or breaching of contractual limits, 

(b) contractual warning letter, and 

(c) performance bond or bank guarantee. This is explained in detail in the Clause of Contract 56.0 [GOVERNMENT RECOUP CONTRACT COST]

4. Not all termination in construction industry mainly Government projects is due to incompetent Contractors. The condition of the initial contract may varied from what was planned and/or probably due to site condition. This is due to unforeseen obstacles by the Consultant(s) during the Preliminary Stage. From here, the Government will recoup the Contract cost by suing the Consultant and redeem incurred contract cost through Consultant's Professional Insurance (a very long process through High Court). In some Design and Build Contract, the failure of a design shall be borne by the Contractor under the Clause of Contract 22.0 through the Design Guarantee Bond. [GOVERNMENT RECOUP CONTRACT COST].

5. In some rare cases, a termination can be a mutual termination or due to Force Majeure. Contractor does not need to be in default for some cases of termination. Some works are not able to be carried out due to unforeseen circumstances, both agreed parties can go for Mutual Termination as mentioned in Clause of Contract 50.3. If termination falls under this category, the Government is not hold responsible for any payment for construction cost incurred by the Contractor. [GOVERNMENT FREED FROM ADDITIONAL COST].

6. Aside from mutual termination, there are conditional termination of the Contractor where;-

(a) Contractor becomes bankrupt,

(b) Contractor becomes insolvents,

(c) resolution is effectively passed for winding-up,

(d) possession taken by creditors, and e. execution is levied against a substantial portions of assets.

7. Some may not be aware that the Contractor can be terminated due to National Interest, corruptions, unlawful or illegal activities.

8. A Contractor would think twice before defaulting a Contract since the Government shall be entitled to all losses, costs, damages and expenses including incidental cost and expenses incurred by the Government arising from the termination. [GOVERNMENT RECOUP CONTRACT COST].

9. At the end of the day, a termination is the last thing a Contractor would like to end up with after signing a covenant. The stake is high. These are some of the superficial understandings on Project Management and Contract.

INTRODUCTION

Health Facilities has been one of the most important facilities in nation building and the Government of Malaysia have spent substantially where as for the 9th Malaysia Plan, a total of RM10.7 Billion has been allocated to construct 132 health clinics. Aside from that, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is getting their three new hospitals and three more replacement hospitals which cost the Government up to RM2 Billion. In addition to all these, the ministry had allocated RM14.8 billion which includes RM11.2 billion as management and RM3.6 billion as development expenditure. (The New Straits Times, 15th January 2010). The Government of Malaysia is aware of the requirement of WHO which indicates that, a country should spend a minimum of 5-6% of GDP on healthcare whilst the total healthcare expenditure of the world is around 7.9% of world GDP in 1997. Based on WHO ranking, Malaysia spends around 4.40% of its GDP in 2007. However, the total general government expenditure on health out of the total government expenditure in 2007 was 6.90%. Based on Health Fact 2008 published by MOH, the total Healthcare budget was RM 12,901,865,000.00 which is 7.29% of the National Budget. (4.70% spent on Health as a percentage of GDP). In 1996, the privatization of other services including facilities maintenance has skyrocketed from RM140 Million to RM450 Million at the following year. Based to MOH Strategic Plan 2006-2010, one of the strategic goals would be to enhance the healthcare delivery system and underlined to increase the use of evidence through research to support all levels of decision making as part of their strategies. This makes it a challenge for MOH where there are 130 Hospitals throughout the nation wide which consist of 33,004 beds. Therefore, it has been the Government’s intention to provide health services for the countrymen and it has been the main aim for the facility management to avoid delay or stoppage in delivering their services.

PLANNING FOR REHABILITATION WORKS WITHIN A HOSPITAL

The rehabilitation works are part of the scope of works for the facilities maintenance department to ensure the continuity of the facility in undertaking/providing services. Such scope of work is not substantial for newly opened or operated facilities but it would be one of the main challenges in managing the older facility which had lapse their serviceability period. In conjunction to periodical expansion via replacement hospitals or upgrading through new construction within the vicinity; the only choice left would be to perform addition, rectification, rejuvenation or rehabilitation works on the facilities. The rehabilitation works would vary depending very much on the current requirements, quantum of defects or the forecast of possibilities. The options are closely related to sustainability period, cost and quality in providing remedies. This also depends very much on appraisal and recommendation of the forensics and/or specialist.

Regardless of the type of rehabilitation works which need to be performed on the facility, the key issue of maintenance or rehabilitation would be the impact of such works toward the operation of the hospital. Bear in mind that such work need to be executed with the hospital still operating in various or at most departments. In regards to this factor, a well working plan is compulsory so that it would not cease or halt any operation of the hospital and it must correspond to the Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) of the hospital/facility. It is highly recommended that work sequences and timing should be well programmed to mitigate risks including those which are categorized as intangible (it is a public place and it also governed by humans with behavioral patents). This is due to the main factor that hospital is the main facility for the Health Ministry (which carries the highest financial weightage and expenditure in the service sector), precautions and provisions should be coupled with clear considerations.

In determining the appropriate work program of any work at health facilities and/or hospitals, the main issue to be taken care would be the efficiency of the hospital during execution of the work(s). The efficiency of the hospital and their management would be determined (aside from the key indicators for health status) through the Length of Stay of every patient. This should be reviewed in the light of the Value Stream Mapping and their data. This will ensure that work will not disturb the process or prolong the processes. This will contribute toward the shifting of value from the initial process sigma thus increase in Length of Stay. Therefore it would be best to collaborate with the facility manager to maintain the process sigma if not allow for small deviation from the initial value.

There are many ways in maintaining the processes which will ease the work planning at certain department or location. First is by reviewing the average visits per shift graph to make sure the lowest traffic (lowest point in the graph) in visits. This is a provision where the cycle will not affect the processes as the patients per cycle will not be affected. Aside from utilizing shift graph in achieving the target completion and work schedule, the next particular data which would assist would be the time and day of patient visit. Exploit the lowest traffic by selecting the day which indicates the ‘valley’ of the average graph and also maximized work productivity during at ‘valley’ hours of each location.

It is recommended that planning engineers should leverage daily labor during ‘peak’ hours to distribute the possibilities of prolonging the initial/set quality and critical processes of the whole facilities. Therefore the, entry of resources should start 2 hours (very much depending on resources behavioral) before reaching the ‘valley’ hours because this is a given allowance for multi-tasking resources to familiarize and gradual increase in productivity.

The manipulation of the ‘valley’ side of visit based on day should be the duly general guide in established the best work program in relation to the contract or work execution. This will also contribute less toward the shifting of the process sigma. At these ‘valley’ days, any delay in the facility’s processes will not be highly affected as it is at the low side. Nevertheless, in mitigating delays of the whole facility processes in relation to unavoidable work(s), it is would be the best policy to negotiate with Facility Manager or/and the management itself. It is reckoned that, regardless of the capability of the planning engineer and contractor, it is inevitable to reduce certain delays caused by certain activities; discussion with facility management would assist in reducing the possibilities of prolonging the processes at the facility.

As known to many, the process sigma is a calculation based on resources optimization; therefore to ensure the yield of the whole calculation will not shift, another method of optimization involving the intervention of the facility management would be highly recommended. The increase of process resources will also contribute toward maintaining the process sigma and yield from shifting as earlier set. The time allocation as shown in Value Stream Mapping will revert back as usual thus will maintain the whole process sigma. For example, a planned activity will increase the time lost in treatment or diagnosis. It would be wise to request for the facility to allocate extra resources in registration, triage and recording prior to evaluation and treatment. Since the mapping is a series of processes, reduction in time at the earlier processes will balance back the whole Length of Stay thus will ensure the process sigma remain unchanged.

Pushing through with conventional planning would not only a recipe for delay; it will start to initiate other problems and complication which could be unforeseen by the contractor. It is advisable to avoid intangible risks by adhering working trend/culture/patent at the hospital to avoid complication(s). Never ever try to steer progress through conventional method which is by emphasizing heavy weightage activities instead stress on hourly leverage of resources and pre-planned preparation.

THE UNKNOWN ASSISTANCE AND INTERVENTION

Being ignorant as a contractor is proven to be futile. Not known to many contractors, they are also holding the golden key in solving the whole problem and render solution for the facility. The Contract Document holds the ultimate procedures in mitigating risk or possibilities which may affect the whole processes of the facility. Therefore it will be wise of the contractor to take advantage of such provision within his capability to integrate it in his execution. It would be easy if the Contract spelled out the Work as a Design and Build Work as it could be made available during the preparation of Preliminary Detail Abstract (PDA) prior to price negotiation. Procedures and methods in mitigating risk(s) and possibilities of event that would contribute to time shall be spelled out in details at the Preliminary and General Section. It is kind off tricky for those who are getting Works through tender process and bind a Contract in PWD203A format. There are steps and techniques in acquiring it to absorb in the contract during the pre-tender processes. Aside from that, a tactical modus should be executed at post tender stage which will gradually enable the contractor to assist and facilitate the facility managements at the receiving end in order to mitigate possibilities of delay of the project or increasing the Length of Stay and/or slump in facility’s efficiency.