Case 3 - Four days lost in a fixed-date retail fit-out
Halcyon Retail is fitting out a 1,800 square metre store for a 1 October opening. The approved schedule shows: design sign-off complete; fixture fabrication 20 days; electrical rough-in 12 days starting after sign-off and finishing before ceiling close; ceiling close 5 days after electrical; fixture install 8 days after fabrication and ceiling close; merchandising 6 days after fixture install; staff training 4 days running in parallel with merchandising but dependent on ceiling close; final inspection 3 days after both merchandising and training. Fabrication finished on time. Electrical rough-in was due to finish four days ago and has eight days of work remaining; the electrical-to-ceiling-to-merchandising path has three days of total float in the baseline. Fixture install itself carries three days of float. The landlord will not move the opening date, and the lease penalty is £12,000 per day of delay. Overtime on electrical costs £900 per day and can shorten the remaining rough-in by up to three days. A second fixture crew costs £4,500 and can shorten fixture install by three days. The electrical subcontractor refuses to add a second shift.
1. Which recovery lever should be authorised, and what is the cost justification? Which lever should be refused?
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Authorise electrical overtime first.
The electrical rough-in is 4 days behind and sits on a path with only 3 days of total float, so the opening currently slips about 1 day - £12,000. Up to 3 days of overtime costs at most 3 x £900 = £2,700 and recovers 2 days of float plus the slip, reducing projected delay to zero.
Refuse the second fixture crew. Fixture install has 3 days of float and does not drive the opening date at present. Spending £4,500 shortens a non-driving activity: it buys float, not time. It would only become relevant if electrical recovery fails and the fixture path becomes critical - so it belongs in the contingency plan as a trigger-based option, not in the current recovery plan.
Sequencing matters: recover the driving path before buying capacity elsewhere. Buying capacity on the wrong activity is a common exam trap and a common real-world waste.
Caveat: confirm the float figures with a forward pass before committing, because float on a path can be shared and a single figure can mislead.
2. What must be updated in the schedule and risk artefacts, and what do you tell the landlord and steering group?
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Schedule updates
- Record actual start and finish dates for electrical and remaining duration; do not overwrite the baseline.
- Recalculate the forward and backward pass, showing the new total float on each path and which activities are now critical.
- Model the overtime option explicitly - three days at £900 - so the recovery is a visible, approved schedule change, not an unrecorded assumption.
- Re-sequence where sensible: final inspection must follow both merchandising and training, so confirm training will not become the new constraint once ceiling close is recovered.
Risk and issue records: log the electrical delay as an issue with cause, impact and owner; update the risk register with a residual risk that the electrical subcontractor is a single point of failure with no surge capacity.
Message to the landlord: factual and dated - projected completion, the recovery action in place, the residual exposure, and the date by which confidence will be confirmed. Do not promise the opening date until the electrical recovery is measured at day 2.
Message to the steering group: the cost of recovery (£2,700), the avoided penalty (£12,000), and the residual risk with a named contingency trigger.
3. What secondary risks do the recovery options create, and what contingency should be set?
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Secondary risks of overtime
- Quality and rework risk: compressed electrical work increases the chance of inspection failure, which would consume the recovered time and cost more than the penalty saved.
- Safety and fatigue risk on site; overtime in fit-outs often produces a spike in snagging.
- Knock-on congestion: electrical and ceiling crews working in the same space may block each other, so the theoretical 3-day saving may not materialise.
Secondary risks of the late finish generally
- Merchandising and training compress into each other and the store opens with staff trained on an unfinished system or layout.
- Final inspection is fixed at 3 days; a failed inspection at that point has no float left at all.
Contingency to set:
- Measure electrical progress at day 2 of overtime; if less than 50% of the expected saving is achieved, trigger the second fixture crew (£4,500) as a pre-approved contingency.
- Reserve a management contingency of at least one day's penalty (£12,000), plus a snagging budget.
- Brief the store team that the first-week roster has no slack, and pre-agree a reduced-opening option with the landlord rather than discovering it at inspection.