We’ve recently returned from our 3-day, “P6 for Government Contracts” training session for Dawson Construction in Honolulu. One significant takeaway that reinforced what we were already noticing is that new government personnel are changing NAVFAC’s & USACE’s scheduling specs for recent projects. For years we had been able to count on a rigorous but largely boilerplate scheduling spec for both branches of the service. Not so anymore. Here’s six tips to help to get your IPS accepted (and get you paid faster) on D.O.D. contracts:
- READ (AND FOLLOW) THE SPECS ! As fundamental and obvious as it sounds, even experienced schedulers often skip this crucial stop and assume they know what’s required. We all know how to spell “assume”, and it’s as true as ever.
- Both NAVFAC & the Corps are now including WBS instructions in their scheduling spec. Be ready to comply with this new requirement.
- NAVFAC construction managers are using a recently-compiled 82-point checklist to evaluate IPS submissions. Know it and get it right the first time. We’re providing a link to download this stringent list of requirements (we do ask for your email and company info to download).
- The 48-Division CSI MasterFormat codes are required Activity Codes by both branches. Our recommendation is to code to the Division level to keep it simple, and assign to each Activity.
- Recent specs mandate that the Log Report must now be submitted with each schedule submission. This is generally good news: D.O.D.’s old requirement that several (ancient & ugly) text reports for each submission is now largely a thing of the past. Most all specified reports now specified are the more graphical reports created from saved layouts.
- We’re also seeing the Government’s CM’s enforcing the 20% maximum Critical Path Activities mandate. One solution is to schedule at least 1 Day of Total Float. This is a slippery slope that may not be reasonable for all projects, so be prepared!
