Many of you are familiar with our semi regular training videos aimed at helping you get better at construction programming, and as usual we have another one for you, but first we want to share a bit of news… 3 questions Do you hold a driving licence? How many lessons did it take before you […]

Introduction The United States Defence Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a Federal Agency for the American Department of Defence (DoD), that works directly with Defence suppliers to help ensure that DoD, Federal, and allied government supplies and services are delivered on time, at projected cost, and meet all performance requirements. After contract award, the DCMA […]

Leads The DCMA guideline sets the test threshold for Leads as zero.  In other words, they are not allowed.   A lead is a negative lag between two tasks in which the following task starts a given number of days before the finish date of its predecessor. This creates an overlapping relationship between the two activities.  […]

Lags The DCMA allows a maximum of 5% of total task relationships to make use of a lag. A Lag is a positive delay inserted between two activities in order to offset the start of the following activity.  Lags are often used in a Finish–to–Start relationships such as the example shown below, where there is […]

Relationship Types The DCMA states that at least 90% of all activity relationships should use the Finish-to -Start relationship There are four types of logical relationship used in programming, these are as follows: Finish–to-Start Where the preceding activity must finish for the following activity to start.   The Finish-to-start relationship provides the most explicit representation […]

Assessment 5 - Hard Constraints The DCMA sets the use of Hard Constraints to a maximum of 5% of incomplete activities There are eight types of constraint used in programming which affect the way the programme calculates the timing and duration of activities through the network of logic.  However, there will be occasions when a […]

High Float The DCMA states that no more than 5% of incomplete activities should have a float of 44 days or more. Float, or slack depending on where you are from, (MS Project calls it Slack) is the amount of time that a task or activity can be delayed, before it starts to impact the […]

Negative Float The DCMA guideline sets the allowance for Negative Float (Slack) as zero.  In other words, there should not be any in the programme.   Negative Slack happens in one of two ways:  When a hard constraint is preventing a task being pushed out to a later date and is therefore preventing calculation of the […]

Long Duration The DCMA states that no more than 5% of Tasks should have a duration of 44 days (2 working months) or more. The point of programming works is to streamline the construction process by breaking the project down into its component parts and then creating a logical sequence of events that minimises delay […]

Invalid Dates The DCMA guideline states no invalid dates are allowed.  During the execution of the project, regular status updates are made to record the current progress of the project.  The purpose of the status update is to create a true and accurate measured snapshot of the programme as at a specific date, this being […]

Resources The DCMA guideline recommends that all programme activities should have a Resource assigned to them. This is quite a sweeping statement which needs further exploration, as in practice there are many exceptions to this rule.  For example, activities such as lead times for procurement, or client review of shop drawings, will have a time […]

Missed Tasks The DCMA guideline states no more than 5% of activities should miss their baseline dates. The Missed Tasks test is a project in-progress review at the time of a status update, which reviews actual performance against baseline forecast.  It measures the number of tasks that have finished later than their baseline finish dates […]

Critical Path Test The DCMA guideline states that a programme either passes or Fails the Critical Path Test The critical path test is a simple pass/fail test intended to evaluate the integrity of the network logic. The test is performed by first noting the total duration of the project, then displaying the critical path in […]

Critical Path Length Index (CPLI) DCMA considers a CPLI below 0.95 to be indicative of a potential problem requiring further investigation and possible mitigation. The Critical Path Length Index (CPLI) is a project in-progress measure of the level of efficiency needed to complete the project. During the construction phase the works are often either ahead […]

Base Line Execution Index (BEI) DCMA considers a BEI below 0.95 to be indicative of a lack of efficiency requiring further investigation and possible mitigation. The Baseline Execution Index (BEI), is another project in-progress measure intended to indicate level of performance against the baseline plan. In other words, how efficient is the construction team at […]

Ever wondered why your projects finish late, or why you can’t keep to the construction programme?  Simple truth is the programme was probably wrong from the start. Large projects typically take 20% longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80% over budget. (source McKinsey Global Institute) Programme is the top performance measure in […]

Look at your construction programme schedule and ask yourself these three questions: Does my programme provide a logical list of all the individual tasks (trade by trade) which must be performed, in order to build the project? Does my programme link the dependencies of all the tasks to be performed, both with the tasks that […]