What is a CPM Schedule?
CPM stands for Critical Path Method. It is the most common method of scheduling in the industry. To see a presentation explaining the Critical Path Method, Click here.

What are the benefits of having Forward prepare your CPM Schedule?
Delay damages on a project often cost more than a hundred times as much as the CPM schedule itself. Studies show that most delay damages could have been avoided if the schedule had been used effectively to communicate and solve problems.
Forward Associates provides assistance to insure that your schedule is used most effectively. This may mean anything from answering questions on our web page or toll-free telephone line, to producing the entire schedule, bound and delivered, at the job site each period. Our function is to assist you in planning and controlling your project. Only you can plan your work. Your schedule should represent your own ideas and decisions, no scheduler or consultant can do this for you. An experienced consultant, however, can help you structure your tasks to speed your work, so you can concentrate on the details. In this way you have more time to do your job as manager while maximizing the benefits of your schedule. Among these benefits will be:

• A means of becoming familiar with the project
• A checklist in analyzing possible courses of action
• A bilateral basis for establishing the value of work performed
• An aid for evaluating the effects of changes
• A map to avoid delay damages
• A tool for helping you guide your project to completion on time and under budget

No project is without problems. That is why good management pays off. However, when good management fails to prevent delay, it is often best to try and recover the lost time. Skilled application of quality scheduling will determine the feasibility and cost of recovery. Often the best decision is to agree on a contract adjustment. Claims can be avoided by good decisions based on timely and accurate schedule information.

• 98% of Forward’s projects are successful in avoiding claims.
• Fewer than 60 of the 3,000 Forward projects had delays settled by court hearings.

When claims avoidance fails, relationships may deteriorate between the owner and contractor so that a third party is required to determine delay damages. In these cases, the quality of the schedule presentation will determine the results.
Forward has one of the best win/loss records in the industry. Forward's thorough and innovative methods are the reason for this success.
For example: The Measured Mile is the most effective method used today to prove the loss of efficiency in a project. Forward Associates Ltd. was first to use it with the Critical Path Method in Cox versus the United States(United States Court of Claims, 29 April 1988).