Primavera P6 is being increasingly used in construction markets across the world, often as a necessary requirement to fulfil contractual obligations. But how justified is the obsession with P6, questions Tom Kapapa of Quantum Global Solutions.
The construction market in Qatar is progressing at an unprecedented pace – delivery periods for projects are right owing to the fixed deadlines of the 2022 World Cup and the 2019 World Athletics Championship. The projects being constructed are intense and provide complex civil engineering challenges unseen in this region before. In this context, it is not surprising that issues of delay and extension of time (EoT) claims are affecting most projects.
Advanced engineering software such as Primavera P6 is often used to demonstrate EoT, but do we really need them? Before answering this, a recap on the advent of P6 usage is worth considering.
In the Middle East, over the past five years or so, we have witnessed the rise of P6, mainly brought about by the obsolescence of P3. Of late, we have also seen construction contracts specifying P6 for planning and monitoring of works. Based on my observations dealing with EoT claims, P6 specification has had a negative impact more often than not on the usage of P6.
Risks of P6 specification
When P6 is turned into a requirement in construction contracts, the projects and stakeholders run the following risks:
- With too many details incorporated in P6, unmanageable programmes are developed for the construction phase of the project with thousands of activities.
- The project team becomes more focused on the technical aspect of developing and updating the programme instead of analysing the practical issues and how to effectively plan the work ahead of them.
- Numerous functionality issues of the programme come up, such as complex logic network, to the extent that it is not possible to complete all the required activity data and relationships. The errors produced by this become significant as the programme is updated and requires constant review to reset any missing or incorrect data and relationships, as they become apparent during the update process. Due to the number of activities, managing this process becomes a major exercise, which in some cases is not undertaken at all.
- The primary factor when developing the project programme becomes meeting the contract specification/requirements, and not necessarily producing a practical workable programme. Furthermore, there are examples of technically correct programmes, which meet the contract specification but have fundamental construction-related errors unidentified.
- These monster programmes become unreadable in a sense that the project team, other than the planners involved, cannot understand the programme. Therefore, the programme cannot be used for day-to-day management of the project.
- When a programme of this magnitude is produced, it results in a reliance on the programme itself.
“P6 has its place in construction management, but it is up to the project management team to use it sensibly and practically.”
Often the planners do not interpret the programme and rely on the calculations and settings within P6 to churn out answers. They become part of the P6 process, and remove the human element from the programme management aspect of the project. This over-reliance on P6 often makes the thought of modifying the programme daunting for planners due to the complexity of the logic network and resource data.
Eventually, the programme often ends up being used for reporting facts and figures rather than assisting the construction of the project. However, this is not to say that P6 is not a satisfactory piece of software for developing, monitoring and controlling projects. In fact, P6 has some of the best features that can be very useful for engineers. However, it is the use of P6 that is becoming unsatisfactory. Despite the complexities involved, P6 can be used effectively to monitor and manage projects.
There is no doubt that a project programme is an important contract document. However, just because we have a piece of software (such as P6) that can handle tens of thousands of activities with their associated data, does not mean we have to produce programmes that contain tens of thousands of activities if it is not necessary to do so. However, very often it is loaded with unnecessary data.
Demonstrating EoT through P6
The perception that by having more details in a programme, projects can be better planned and controlled does not hold true. In fact, a programme with too many details can often result in an unmanageable project. From the perspective of delay analysis and EoT submissions, it seems that P6 is often more of a hindrance than a solution. Common sense should prevail more often when dealing with these issues. I have observed that the limitations of P6 programmes have become more and more apparent due to the recent trend among contractors producing very high activity count programmes whether to meet specifications et or for their own record.
Fundamentally, there are two types of delay analysis for EoT submission: the dynamic and the static.
- The Dynamic EoT submission needs planning software to demonstrate the impact of delay events on a given project. This software can be P6, P3, Microsoft, Asta and TILOS etc.
- The Static EoT submission can be produced with or without advanced planning software. For example, activities can be produced in a bar chart format in many standard software packages, such as Microsoft Excel.
To me, it seems that type two is often better, easily understandable and favoured option, whereas type one has its limitations because at the heart of the Dynamic EoT submissions is the delay event narratives containing the statements of cause and effect based on the contemporaneous records of the project. P6 is usually the planning software used on the project producing the contemporaneous baselines and updated programmes. Since the chosen software for the project is P6, there is a perception that without P6, demonstration of any EoT entitlement is not possible.
There is increasing reliance on software as opposed to common sense. If half of the project work scope has been suspended for two years, do we need P6 to prove this delay?
Due to the generally high number of activities seen in the P6 project programmes, it becomes difficult to produce an easily understandable representation of delay events and their impact on the project. The document produced when using typical P6 programmes has hundreds of pages of print-outs, which are often not even looked at.
The P6 graphical format and functionality is not ideally suited for incorporation into documents. The layout is very specific to P6 and it takes considerable effort to produce a presentable and easily readable layout for integrating into a document. In other cases, it is better just to re-do the layout in simpler file formats, such as Excel.
“Because of P6’s advanced features, project information incorporated in this software is often limited to planners who are tech savvy to use complex construction software.”
In some cases, it becomes necessary to reproduce the programme in a more understandable format by reducing a significant number of activities. This could also be done in P6, where less data is much easier to comprehend.
Therefore, even with the dynamic analysis using P6, data can be made more understandable and usable in an EoT document, fulfilling both contract requirements and wishes of the engineer. This clearly supports my argument.
P6 is only a tool – a tool to be used to assist the development of the EoT submission. It is not a magic want that can be used to demonstrate EoT simply by submitting a programme showing delayed activities.
The key of any worthy EoT submission is to present the EoT request in a clear and concise manner, based on the factual evidence available from the contemporaneous project records. To achieve this, I feel, based on all said complications and limitations, it is not essential to use P6. However, this requires breaking down the barriers with planning technicians, which is not an easy task. It is also worth noting that in the old days, there was no such thing as P6 or P3, and yet EoT issues were resolved. Unfortunately, there is an over-reliance on technology which ironically should be a good thing. P6 may also soon be superseded, but the principles of delays and extension of time remain the same.
Finally, P6 has its place in construction management, but it is up to the project management team to use it sensibly and practically to ensure we get the benefit of its functionality to help achieve our project objectives.
Tom Kapapa, Operations and Technical Director
Tom Kapapa is the Operations and Technical Director at Quantum Global Solutions. He is a member and Qualified Professional Surveyor of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. QGS is acknowledged as one of the leading management consultancies dedicated to serving the interests of national and international construction and engineering organisations.
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This article was previously published in the September 2015 edition of Qatar Construction News Magazine