Construction Delay Analysis & Forensic Schedule Analysis

Delay analysis answers one question with rigour: of everything that happened on a programme, what actually moved the completion date — and who carries the time and cost of it. Done well, it turns a contested schedule into a defensible position. Done poorly, it produces a number nobody can stand behind.

What delay analysis establishes

The work separates delay to completion from mere consumption of float, traces each significant event from cause to critical-path effect, and tests the result against the contemporaneous record. The output is an entitlement — a number of days — supported by evidence, not assertion.

Methods, matched to the records

No single method suits every case. The right technique depends on the timing of the analysis and the quality of the programmes and records available:

• Time Impact Analysis (TIA) — modelling a delay event into the programme current at the time, to show its prospective effect on completion.
• Windows / time-slice analysis — dividing the works into periods and assessing delay within each against the schedule then in force.
• As-planned versus as-built — comparing the intended sequence with what actually happened.
• Impacted as-planned and collapsed as-built — where records or programmes constrain the options.

Prospective methods look forward from a point in time; retrospective methods reconstruct from the as-built record. Each has a proper place, and choosing between them is itself part of the analysis. My related work on Extension of Time claims applies these methods to entitlement, and schedule assurance ensures the baseline they rely on is sound in the first place.

The critical path is the discipline

Entitlement follows the critical (or longest) path, so the analysis starts there and stays there. A delay to non-critical work consumes float; it does not, by itself, delay completion. Getting this right depends on a programme whose logic and critical path can actually be believed — which is why baseline validity is the first thing examined, not the last.

Concurrent delay, causation and records

Genuine concurrency — where an Employer-risk and a Contractor-risk event each independently affect completion over the same period — is identified honestly and assessed for its effect on both time and money. Throughout, the position is weighed against contemporaneous records: programmes, progress, correspondence and change. A case built as events unfolded is stronger than one reconstructed after the fact.

Recognised frameworks

The analysis is informed by widely referenced industry frameworks — notably AACE International’s Recommended Practice 29R-03 on forensic schedule analysis, and the Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol. These are respected reference points for method and terminology; referencing them describes the approach, not any official endorsement.

In practice

This discipline underpins two of the outcomes on the record: an EOT claim reduced from 291 to an approved 64 days on a major Abu Dhabi infrastructure programme, and a 426-day position reduced to 91 through forensic review. Both stood because every day was traceable. For how a claim is tested from the reviewer’s side, see how to assess an EOT claim.

The full analytical workflow — contract, baseline, delay events, critical-path migration, causation and time impact — is set out under forensic delay analysis.