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The project schedule control specification had been enforcing for almost 30 years, since the Taipei metropolitan area mass rapid transit line projects were initiated in 1980. Although all the large public track work construction contracts have mandatory requested with schedule management clauses or regulations, some of their requirements were clear and specific, yet some were not. Some of the contracts even put these scheduling requirements in different sections under the specification. In 2013, the Public Construction Commission, Executive Yuan (PCC) has openly enacted the Construction Outline Specification with the new “Section 01103 Progress Management” (SPEC) related to the project schedule control. This SPEC has actually lumped together all aforementioned schedule control regulations or clauses of the past public construction contracts to be the completed, basic standard to be followed by both the government owners and contractors. With its taking effect, PCC expected to promote the overall quality and performance of the project progress control in order to complete the contracts on time. As of the late 2016, only the San Ying line project of New Taipei City has been awarded after the SPEC enforcement in 2013. Therefore, the government latest track work project which utilizes the SPEC is currently only on the initiating stage and could not be taken as eligible case for effectiveness study. This study has taken the track work projects which have completed before 2013 as the cases to thoroughly review the actual schedule control report against each specific progress control requirement of those cases. Then, these results were used for comparing, validating the applicability and performance on each of the SPEC article. All cases were found almost fully conforming to the requirements or regulations of the SPEC. However, all cases had encountered one or two contractual time extensions (EOT) except the high speed rail way project, which extended their contract time under different conciliation alternative. These EOT facts bring up the unavoidable question i.e. why the SPEC regulations could not achieve its promises? This study thoroughly reviews the actual construction record of 5 cases and summarizes all their EOT events. The author also recommends adapting the Window Analysis method to perform the time delay analysis periodically and fairly to conclude all delay responsibilities which are to be shared by the owner or the contractor. The deficiency of the new SPEC has also been reviewed and proposed with some amendment as the reference material on progress management procedures for future public projects.
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