Glossar

The BAC only changes during a project when the scope is formally changed, which makes it the stable anchor of cost control. It is frequently confused with the EAC (estimate at completion), the continuously updated forecast of actual final cost.

In practice the gap between BAC and EAC is worth watching: it is the number a steering committee actually discusses.

The BEI is one of the 14 DCMA checks and is usually treated as critical below 0.95. Its advantage over percentage progress figures is that it counts completed activities, which makes it considerably harder to talk up.

Its weakness is equal weighting: a trivial activity counts as much as a critical one. The BEI therefore complements a critical path review rather than replacing it.

The boundary to OPEX (ongoing operating expenditure) often decides how a project is approved in practice, and therefore how tightly it is scheduled. Maintenance work during a shutdown frequently sits exactly on that line.

For schedule control one point matters: CAPEX approvals are usually granted in stages. Every approval stage is a milestone that belongs in the schedule, because it can block procurement activities.

The CPLI is one of the 14 DCMA checks, with 0.95 as the usual threshold. It answers a question a bar chart cannot: how much time reserve is genuinely left between today and the completion date?

The CPLI only becomes meaningful as a trend. A single value is a snapshot; three reporting periods with a falling CPLI are an early warning that demands a control decision.

The assessment does not judge whether the planned dates are realistic, but whether the schedule is capable of calculating delay correctly at all. A schedule that passes may still be too optimistic. A schedule that clearly fails, however, cannot be controlled.

In practice the thresholds are used to start a conversation, not to pass judgement: every deviation needs an explanation, and contractually justified constraints are an entirely legitimate deviation.

For schedule control an EPC contract shifts the decisive question: the focus is no longer the coordination of trades but the traceability of the schedule the contractor submits.

That is exactly where structural assessments such as the DCMA 14 analysis come in. They give the owner an objective criterion for judging how reliable a submitted schedule is.

Total float (delay without affecting the completion date) has to be distinguished from free float (delay without affecting the earliest start of the successor). The schedule calculates both values itself. They are not an estimate.

Conspicuously high float is almost always a logic error in practice: an activity with 400 days of float usually simply has no successor. That is exactly what the DCMA 14 analysis checks.

The benefit comes from the rhythm, not from the level of detail: weekly rounds surface obstacles while they can still be removed: missing material, outstanding approvals, preceding work that has not been accepted.

Lookahead planning does not replace the schedule. It feeds it: every unresolved obstacle becomes a justified shift in the next update.

The value of the chart lies in the trend: it shows not only that a milestone has moved but whether the move is part of a pattern. That is exactly what distinguishes a one-off disruption from a systematic problem.

It requires discipline about reporting dates: if forecasts are entered irregularly or corrected retrospectively, the analysis loses all meaning.

A baseline is only re-set when the scope is formally changed, not because dates no longer fit. That discipline is what makes variances visible in the first place.

In practice it pays to document the baseline together with its assumptions: assumed delivery times, permit durations, resource availability. Without them nobody can later judge whether a variance was a planning error or a changed boundary condition.