As a contractor what would you do when you are given a “rejected” schedule and you have to review and resubmit it for consultant’s approval?

The best part you do if you are sure about your work is you argue. Or else you follow the scheme of instructions given by the client planner for correction.

The Fundamental reasons for rejection of schedule by client are:

1) Logic 2) Leads & Lags3) Relationships4) Constraints5) High Floats6) High Durations7) Resource allocation8) Invalid dates (Compared with contract)9) Missing Activities.

As a contractor when you are preparing a Level4 schedule, you need to consider all these things. All these factors are paramount to have a good working schedule. Majority of schedulers tend to miss2-3 items from these factors. The first big mistake our schedulers do is  not capturing the overall activities and secondly the relationships they follow. Then all these other mistakes creep up owing to adjustments and all. The best thing a scheduler should do to avoid such mistakes after developing a schedule are:

1) Reviewing the schedule along with all the concerned engineers (Civil, Mech, Electrical, Instrumentation)

2) Check each and every key dates with respect to contractual dates.

3) Make specific filters and review for floats - High, Negative, Durations, codes

4) Check critical path & longest path if constraints are not applied or else check the predecessors for all the key milestone dates

5) Develop curves for resource assignment and usage along with cost and review in conjunction with cash flow plan.