Steve Holloway, based in Denver, Colorado, is a construction schedule delay expert serving plaintiffs and defendants. Steve Holloway has performed construction schedule delay analysis since 1974 while working as a Project Engineer at Fluor Corporation. He is now an internationally recognized construction schedule delay expert with 16 years of field experience and 30+ years as an expert. Construction schedule delay analysis has been our core practice area since the firm’s inception in 1997.
In over two hundred cases, law firms, owners, architects, engineers, contractors, and other parties have retained Steve Holloway as the construction schedule delay expert. He has prepared over two hundred expert reports (mediation, initial, rebuttal, supplemental, and demonstrative trial exhibits) involving construction schedule delays and damages. Most of his deposition, arbitration, and trial testimony has been on construction schedule delay and damages topics.
He has also lectured and spoken on construction schedule delay topics before the AGC, ABC, CLE, Colorado Defense Lawyers Association, Colorado Bar Association, Denver Bar Association, Construction Superconference, and other industry groups.
Common Causes of Schedule Delays
One of the most common causal factors in Holloway’s cases is the general contractor’s failure to adequately plan and schedule the work. Construction scheduling problems most often begin with the failure of management to contribute to the planning/scheduling process adequately. Instead, they often ask a junior project engineer with little relevant experience to lead this process. The result is often a Primavera job schedule that doesn’t match the Superintendent’s short-term schedules. And schedules often make little sense to those building the job. Another common causal factor is the General Contractor’s failure to contractually require the trades’ “buy-in” to schedules and the job scheduling process. But there have been many other causal factors in our projects.
Owner-caused delays most often arise in the form of owner changes or design error(s) by the architect or engineer(s). We have provided extensive coverage of design changes and errors in our blog.
CPM- based construction schedule delay analyses
Critical Path Method (CPM) has become an integral part of construction disputes involving time-related damages claims for contractor delay, acceleration, liquidated damages, and owner lost profits and revenues, etc. These construction schedule delay analyses are vital to the success or failure of a case, and precautions should be taken to ensure that credible experts perform them consistent with industry standards. The AACEI Recommended Practice is a common industry reference for construction time impact analysis.
Construction schedule delay expert CPM-based methodologies are subject to four legal criteria:
1. The construction expert’s methodology has been tested.
2. The methodology has been subjected to publication and peer review.
3. There is a known or potential rate of error, and
4. There is a general acceptance of the methodology in the legal community.
The type(s) of schedule analysis appropriate for a particular case depends on a number of factors which vary from case to case such as the quality and quantity of the documentation and data, damages sought, etc.
Some of the construction schedule delay analysis methods that have been subjected to legal and peer review (both positive and negative) include:
Construction Schedule Delay Expert Methods
- Acceleration Analysis
- Collapsed As-Built or As-Built But-For Schedule Analysis
- Impacted As-Built Schedule Analysis
- Impacted As-Planned Schedule
- Schedule Delay Analysis and Quantification
- Schedule Windows Analysis
- Time Impact Analysis
- Update Impact Analysis
Construction schedule delay analysis case studies can be found here.