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Views on the Actual Critical Path vs As-

Built Critical Path
Published on October 11, 2018

Ahmad Albirawi BSc, MSc Following

Project Controls, Planning, Delay Analyst 88 28 7
3 articles

The 2nd edition of the SCL protocol for delay and disruption identified three ways to
determine criticality or let’s say the critical path term when carrying CPM analysis, those
are;

- Prospective Critical Path;

- Contemporaneous Critical Path; and

- Retrospective Critical Path.

Although it may be seemed that the protocol had established the definition of those ways
(terms), however, it is still had created a controversy between delay analyst professionals
about the use of the right term when performing or expressing the critical path analysis
findings.

The protocol has associated the six commonly used methods with the above Critical Path
terms as follows:

- Impacted as Planned Analysis (IAP) determine the critical path ‘Prospectively’.

- Time Impact Analysis (TIA), Time Slice Windows Analysis (TSA) and As-Planned
vs. As-Built Windows Analysis (APABW) determine the critical path ‘Contemporaneously’.
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- Retrospective Longest Path Analysis and Collapsed As-Built
6 Analysis (CABA)
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determine the critical path ‘Retrospectively’.

The protocol has then implied further critical path terms when describing the common used
methods;

- Contemporaneous or ‘Actual’ critical path. This term has been cited only with TSA
and APABW methods; and

- Retrospective ‘As-Built’ critical path. This term has been cited only with the
retrospective longest path analysis method.

Although the ‘Actual’ and ‘As-Built’ terms sound similar (according to the old school),
however, the protocol had distinguished between both terms but not provide a clear
definition. My interpretation of both terms are as follows;

- Actual critical path is a dynamic path (or sometime referred to progressive path)
reflect the shifting of the path into a different area of the programme over the course of time.
It is fairly associated with programme updates or as-built programme sliced/divided into
windows period (time slice/snapshots). This shall allow the analyst to determine the critical
path from time to time and how it evolved over the course of the project.

- As-Built critical path is a static path over the course of the project. The path is
determined by tracing the longest continuous path backwards from the actual completion
date towards actual commencement date. The path does not account for the
contemporaneous effect over the course of the project. Thus it is referred to a static as-built
critical path.

The faced controversy is due to different terms used under different guidelines (i.e. SCL
protocol and AACE recommended practice) and not having a unified and complete glossary
for delay analysis used terms.

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Windel Lou Agcaoili, RME • 2nd 5d

Quantity Surveyor (E&M) at Shinryo (Hong Kong) Limited

Ferdinand Soco
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Tejas Patel • 2nd 7d

Consultant Project Management Messaging

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4/2/2019 Views on the Actual Critical Path vs As-Built Critical Path | LinkedIn
In a "Contemporaneously" method i.e TSA, fundamental assumption is remaining activities are to
Search executed according to baselined schedule logic, Hence Actual critical path6is dynamic, while in 8 Try Premium Free
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"Retrospective" method analyst re-generates critical path based on past event records, hence as-built
critical path is static.
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SALIN GUNAPALAN • 2nd 6d

Manager -Project Control at Aker Solutions

Even during retrospective analysis,when one compares snapshots of the windows during different
time periods, the critical path differs. 
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Ahmad Albirawi BSc, MSc • 2nd 3d

Project Controls, Planning, Delay Analyst

That is due to the dynamic nature of the project and how the project is critically evolved over time
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Ahmad Albirawi BSc, MSc

Project Controls, Planning, Delay Analyst

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