Experience Matters

On behalf of an electrical contractor, analyzed its man-hour and cost overruns that resulted from delays in the completion of predecessor work and the loss of labor productivity caused by the cumulative impact of changes on a hospital project. Prepared an expert report. The dispute was settled in mediation.

Provided a claims prevention training seminar for a hydroelectric power producing company.

Provided dispute resolution services for the City of Columbus’ wastewater treatment plant Project “88.” Participated in document research and discovery of 160,000 project documents. Created an as-built CPM schedule with over 1,600 activities in order to evaluate alleged delays and impacts. Performed a retrospective CPM schedule delay analysis to determine schedule delays to the critical path as well as project acceleration. Determined the validity of 141 alleged contractor claim issues with a value over $7 million. Scrutinized the cause and effect relationship between alleged impact issues and schedule delays. Assisted in damage calculations and manpower distribution analysis. Based on the team’s analysis of the facts, the City of Columbus successfully negotiated an equitable settlement of claims.

On behalf of an African country, provided a rebuttal report and testimony in international arbitration regarding a claimant’s alleged value of its lost business opportunity after performing, at its own expense and risk, engineering and project development services for a port and rail project that it was not awarded. Evaluated the class of the claimant’s estimates of the project costs before and after it performed its de-risking of the project to lower project costs and determined that the estimates were inaccurate based on the information that was available to prepare the estimates. Thus, found that the claimant’s alleged project savings and its claim amount were speculative.

On behalf of an insurance company, analyzed delays related to the construction of an LNG terminal in New Brunswick. The delay analysis included equipment to unload tanker, transfer to LNG storage tanks, vaporization of the LNG, and metering of the gas as it was introduced into a natural gas pipeline. The owner filed the claim because materials were lost overboard at sea in severe weather while being shipped to the site.

On behalf of interested underwriters, performed cost and data analysis and prepared an expert report for an insurance adjuster. The claim related to a fire loss that was the result of a line failure that caused an oil-based thinning agent to leak at a bitumen upgrader settling basin. The loss occurred for one of the largest operators in the Canadian oil sands industry and its joint venture companies. The facility is an embankment dam that was, by volume of construction material, the largest earth structure in the world in 2001.

Provided litigation support for the construction cost overruns and delays for several commercial building projects including a luxury hotel and a major office building.

The executive management of this EPC contractor desired to make its project financial forecasting more robust after suffering a number of project write-downs. After verifying that these write-downs were more than an accounting exercise, the EPC contractor wanted an independent third party to evaluate its bidding and execution practices, benchmark them against industry practices, and develop an integrated project risk management/project governance system that executive management could rely upon. Engaged to evaluate the written procedures and practices of each of the four divisions against industry practices. After the steps required to make those procedures and practices more robust were defined, the team worked with the client to revise the procedures and adjust its practices to make the output of the bidding and execution processes more reliable and transparent to management. This work also involved developing a client custom project governance program to identify high-risk bids and projects during execution and define the tools/staff needed to address these high-risk situations.

Provided a claims prevention training seminar for a chemical company and its EPCM contractor on an $800 million methanol project

Provided schedule and damages analysis services and prepared a $1.2 million claim for a contractor that built a grocery store. Responsible for auditing and recoding invoices and timesheets, preparing a cost variance analysis and calculating damages, recreating the as-built schedule, and identifying and apportioning delays.