Construction projects are interwoven with unpredictability, primarily because of the number of assumptions that are made through project development. Every day, organizations enter legally binding contracts to perform the construction work, which is defined by those assumptions. The unit price contract is commonly used to reduce project procurement duration since a final design with accurate quantity takeoffs is not necessary before the contract award. Even when detailed drawings are available at contract award, changes or omissions may take place, which can cause deviation from the approved design, significantly changing quantities to be installed, often beyond contractual thresholds. But extensions of time that should accompany increased quantities are often overlooked or poorly determined. The focus of this article is to provide solutions for the challenges that organizations face when such variances exceed the specified thresholds and start to impact the project’s schedule. This article presents the case of a highway construction project, as well as delay evaluation methodologies used by the general contractor and owner’s scheduling consultant. This article provides recommendations for the contract awarding agency to enhance resolution in similar situations. This article was first presented as CDR.3491 at the 2020 AACE International virtual Conference & Expo. It was the highest scoring 2020 technical paper based upon the peer review by the Technical Board’s Review Committee and based upon presentation attendee rankings.
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