Impact Analysis of Owner‐Directed Acceleration

Abstract

The purpose of owner‐directed acceleration is to reach a certain milestone, maybe the completion of the project, before a certain deadline. What activities have to be accelerated and what the terms of payment to the contractor will be is the subject of this paper. If acceleration is ordered in the remaining portion of a project that has been delayed by owner‐ and contractor‐caused events, the apportioning of extra acceleration costs between the parties is not simple. The various alternatives that are available for resolving this problem are reviewed in this paper, and a method is proposed to reach a fair and reasonable solution. The method is based on the premise that acceleration of the remaining portion of a project is typically ordered to compensate for the delays that occurred in the completed portion of the project and that acceleration conducted in the most economical way should follow accountability lines chronologically defined in previous delay impact analysis. This way, any replanning to suit the new conditions can be made amply clear by the party concerned. This will help the parties in reaching an agreement before inauguration of the change.