Time Impact Analysis (TIA)

A Time impact analysis TIA is a contemporaneous analysis to find the as-impacted work activities and determine the impacted project completion date due to the analyzed impact. It requires a CPM schedule that enables comparison of the BEFORE and AFTER pictures to find the impact of the delay events that are beyond your control.

A time impact analysis is required as a prerequisite to protect against Liquidated Damages and ensure the awarded time is compensable to cover General Conditions costs. We are working into the future to get your entitlement now.

TIA analysis was first used by the USACE to allow the pricing of an impact.

Benefits to the Owner

A TIA provides the owner with an important tool to determine the how much time should be awarded to the contractor. A TIA prepared by the contractor needs to have a counter-argument by the owner, where concurrent delays are calculated based on project records and schedule updates. The concurrent delays should then be subtracted from the overall number of days requested by the contractor. In many cases, the number of concurrent delay days will cancel out any entitlement that may be due to the contractor.

Benefits to the Contractor

Construction Claims are better served by construction people. HSE’s engineering team has been working on construction delay claims for 20 years. We have a team of experts who can help you assess time impacts and cost damages with more construction knowledge and understanding and a much lower price point than attorneys.

The contractor is able to officially change the project substantial completion date. This gives clarity on the extent of Liquidated Damages, if any, and enables the contractor to redistribute resources throughout the revised project duration.

If the delay events are compensable and could have been prevented by the owner, the next step in the process is for the contractor to calculate ‘General Conditions Costs’. This is the product of overall entitlement days by the average overhead expenses cost per day.

It is important for contractors to submit their TIAs and resolve their claims prior to project completion in order not to lose leverage and to provide all project parties with a genuine representation of project status.

Generally

Early decisions encourage cooperation; no lingering potential claim items on the settled issues, Issues facts are clear, but fade over time, Budget & completion information is always current and reasonably accurate and it allows the Owner to take advantage of pacing opportunities and it reduces or eliminates the need for issuance of unilateral modifications and it shares performance and cost risk.

The selection of a correct TIA methodology is an important initial step in order to ensure a sound premise for the entire claim. Each project is unique. Project record submissions, including schedule updates and delay event documentation, must be carefully analyzed in order to apply the correct TIA methodology. Construction Delay Analysis is a complex and critical task that requires proficient, experienced schedulers together with a cost engineer in order to produce a well-documented TIA. Lack of adequate contemporaneous documentation can make creating a documented TIA possible. HSE is very experienced in TIA preparation.

In some cases, specifications require a particular method to be used when substantiating change orders and presenting a claim for delay or time extension. If the specifications are silent, then HSE uses all of the industry’s most common procedures in accordance with the best practices of AACE International / Forensic Schedule Analysis TCM Framework and CMAA which includes but are not limited to the following delay analysis methods:

• Contamperaneous Window Analysis
• As Built Delay Analysis
• But-For Analysis
• Impacted As Planned

Time impact analyses are used on these occasions:

• When the contractor has not been able to provide remediation instructions and it is not able to redeploy his workforce.
• Time impact analysis is an excellent tool to estimate delays on events that are ongoing construction activities.
• The analysis could be used when delays are already being expected due to external or internal circumstances.
• Time impact analyses are used to model delays on short or simple construction activities. If delays are longer than usual additional methods and tools must be used in conjunction with the TIA.