ORACLE PRIMAVERA P6 CRITICAL PATH

CALCULATIONS
1 Introduction
Many building and construction contracts specify that a delay may only
be claimed when it impacts activities on the Critical Path but in turn
leave it up to the contractor to decide what scheduling options they may
use in their scheduling software, thus allowing the contractor to
determine how the Critical Path is calculated. Therefore an
understanding how the P6 Schedule Options may assist a contractor to
set up their programs to put more activities on the Critical Path and to
be able to substantiate more claims than a program with the P6 Default
Schedule Options is an important subject.

2 Aim
The aim of this paper is to explain how the P6 Schedule Options affect the calculation of the
Critical Path of a P6 schedule and identify which options may be useful for contractors to increase
the number of client delays they may be able to substantiate with their schedule.

3 Understanding P6 Schedule Options that define the Critical Path

The Tools, Schedule, Options form has the following options that determine the calculation of
Critical activities:
 Make open ended activities critical
 Define critical activities as
 Total Float less than or equal to plus a user defined value and
 Longest Path

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The calculation of the Longest Path is difficult to understand from the link Oracle Primavera Help
Version 20 and searching the topic Define critical activities states:
If you choose Longest Path, the activities on the longest path in the network are considered critical.
In a multicalendar project, the longest path is calculated by identifying the activities that have an
early finish equal to the latest calculated early finish for the project and tracing all driving
relationships for those activities back to the project start date.
The Advanced tab also have options for calculating Float Path which also allow further options for
the calculation of Float Paths which in turn give results for chains of activities:

The Advanced tab options will not be discussed in this paper as they are not titled Critical Path.

4 Methodology
I have created a small schedule with three chains of activities:
 Most have been assigned a 5 day per week and 8 hour per day and
 Some have been assigned a 7 day per week and 8 hour per day. These could represent, for
example, curing of concrete.
The following options were then run to demonstrate the different Critical path Calculations:
 Make open-ended activities critical - unchecked.
 Total Float less than or equal to:
o 0h
o 8h which is 1 day and
o 16h which s 2 days
 Longest Path
 Make open-ended activities critical - checked.
 Total Float less than or equal to:
o 0h
o 8h which is 1 day and
o 16h which s 2 days
 Longest Path

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5 Make open-ended activities critical unchecked

5.1 Total Float less than or equal to 0h

This is the Default Setting for P6:
In the picture below the Critical Path and logic is clear:

Issue: None of the activities, except the first, under Deliverable1 or 2 are on the Critical Path and a
delay to any of these may not be claimed when the contract requires the delay to be substantiated
against the Critical Path.
Now the duration of Task A1010 has been changed to 5d and the Critical Paths changes from
A1120 to A1130 because A1120 is on a 7 day per week calendar:

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Now the duration of A1010 has been changed to 4d and the Critical Path has disappeared:

This is a typical issue with schedule that have calendars with different working days per week.

5.2 Total Float less than or equal to 8h which is one day

To demonstrate the way P6 calculates I have changed the duration of task A1130 to 4 days.
When Task A1010 is 6 days this results in a single Critical Path:

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When Task A1010 is changed to 5 days this results in two activities on parallel Critical Paths:

When Task A1010 is changed to 4 days then this results in the Critical Path disappearing for the two
activities that are in parallel because they both have 2 days Total Float which is greater than the
setting Total Float less than or equal to 8h which is one day:

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5.3 Total Float less than or equal to 16h which is 2 days
When the Total Float is set to be less than 2 days we always receive a continuous chain of activities
on the Critical Path and always 2 activities in parallel:

Comment: This option of using Total Float less than or equal to 16h, which is 2 days, when there
is a 2 day difference in calendar working days will maintain a continuous Critical Path when there are
no public holidays. This may not work over holidays like Easter and Christmas when the difference
between the number of working days per week of calendars in excess of two days.

5.4 Longest Path

When the Longest Path is used then the schedule always calculates the Critical Path through the
activity with the 7 day per week calendar based on the P6 definition of how P6 calculates the
Longest Path:

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It may also be seen from the picture below that Multiple Critical Paths are calculated when the
environment is appropriate:

Comment: Thus, the Longest Path is a better solution when you wish to identify a single Critical
Path from the start to finish of the project when there are multiple calendars with a different number
of working days per week.

6 Make open-ended activities critical checked

To make P6 calculate Multiple Critical Paths some logic has to be removed. The picture below has a
Closed Network and all activities are tied into the Finish Milestone A1160 and only one Critical Path
is calculated:

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6.1 Total Float less than or equal to 0h
After the successors are removed from activities A1040 and A1090 then the schedule calculates
with Multiple Critical Paths because activities without successors have their Total Float set to Zero:

But again, we end with more issues of the Critical Path disappearing when we change the duration
of A1010 to 4 days:

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6.2 Total Float less than or equal to 8h which is 1 day
Again, we have issues with a non-continuous Critical Path:

6.3 Total Float less than or equal to 16h which s 2 days

Now everything is Critical in this schedule, which probably does not give the client confidence in your
schedule and they will look more closely at the program.

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6.4 Longest Path
What is interesting here is that the Longest Path option DOES NOT calculate Multiple Critical
Paths which would be an ideal situation:

7 Discussion on Contract Terms and Conditions

Thus, the Longest Path is a better solution when:
 The contractor wishes to identify a single Critical Path from the start to finish of the project,
 There are multiple calendars in the program and
 The contractor is not interested in claiming delays for activities that are not on the Critical Path.
On the other hand, it is unreasonable for a client not to allow costs for activities that have been
delayed by the client when the contractor has either:
 High standby costs for equipment that may not be utilized during the delay. This would occur in
a projects, such as a wind farm erection, and the client does not deliver equipment on time and
the contractor has cranes sitting on high standby rates, or
 When a contractor has committed to start date to a subcontractor and will incur delay costs for
the subcontractor that may not be claimed from the client through the contract.
Often contracts do not allow a claim for cost for tasks that are delayed by the client unless they are
on the critical path. What are the subcontractor options in this situation:
 One option is to negotiate a change to the contract so costs for delayed activities NOT on the
critical path that are delayed by the client may be claimed.
 The contractor could start litigation which will incur further costs.
 Once subcontracts have been signed with fixed start dates then a Start On Constraint could be
assigned to the activity to make it critical.
 Another option is to put in logic into the contract program that is not logical to force high-cost
activities that could be delayed by the customer on to the critical path. This is not advisable as
this is easily found by inspection of the program.

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 Some contractors use Pacing, which is the process of increasing the duration of activities to
force them onto the critical path. Again, this is not advisable as this is easily found by inspection
of the program.
 Also, in the situation where there are separate independent chains of events that are not
logically linked then the option of using Make open-ended activities critical may be
considered. Some notes on this process are:
 If the contract specifically states that the schedule must have a Closed Network then
this option may result in the schedule not being accepted by the client because a
Closed Network stops a Multiple Critical Path from Calculating.
 The Longest Path option may not be used.
 When there are multiple calendars with different number of working days per week then
the option of Total Float less than or equal to say 1 or 2 days may need to be used to
put more tasks onto the critical path, but again this may then result in the schedule not
being accepted by the client.

Paul E Harris
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
21 September 2021

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