Baseline schedule and earned-value control for a podium and car park package

Nahr Contracting is delivering the podium and car park package of a 54-storey mixed-use tower in Dubai. The package is worth AED 186 million and covers three basement levels, a four-level podium, the car park ramps and the podium slab that the tower contractor needs to start above. The contract period is 22 months, with a delay penalty of AED 95,000 per day after the podium handover date.

The planning engineer who built the tender programme has left, and the programme was never cost-loaded. At month 9 the client's project manager is asking awkward questions: the site looks behind, the monthly valuation is lower than forecast, and the tower contractor is worried about its start date.

You will rebuild the baseline properly and then use it to tell the truth about month 9. Specifically: - a work breakdown structure for the package; - about 120 activities with durations based on quantities and productivity rates; - a CPM schedule in Primavera P6, MS Project or ProjectLibre, with the critical path to the podium handover; - resource and cost loading, and a planned S-curve; - an earned-value analysis at month 9 using the progress data in the brief: planned 38% complete, earned value at 31% of budget, and actual cost to date of AED 64.0 million; - a recovery plan with options, costs and the forecast handover date.

Done looks like a baseline a planner would accept, an honest month-9 report with CPI, SPI, a forecast cost at completion and a forecast handover date, and a recovery option the commercial manager can take to the client.