The American Society of Civil Engineer’s new schedule-delay analysis standard attempts to increase significantly an owner’s obligations to grant time extensions for “non-critical path” delays. For that reason, I believe it is flawed. A committee formed by ASCE’s Construction Institute has prepared the standard over the past few years, setting the stage for its recent publication. It provides 35 guidelines that ASCE recommends be followed when performing a schedule-delay analysis. ASCE’s assertion that owners should grant time extensions for non-critical-path delays is based on a new “off-setting delay” concept, which is described in the standard’s guideline 4.6. To legitimize this new concept, ASCE has re-defined “critical activities.”
Consider this new definition. Both long-standing industry best practices and ASCE’s new standard agree that the critical path of work is the longest path of work through the project and the path of work that determines the earliest date a project can finish. The industry has long understood that a critical activity is an activity on the critical path. Defying both logic and established industry practice, ASCE’s new standard asserts that critical activities don’t have to fall on the project’s critical path.