An American perspective of the suitability of the SOCL's protocols provisions for dealing with concurrency on Australian construction projects

Concurrent delays on construction projects have been described as being the most conceptionally challenging aspect of delay analysis. Few of the standard forms of contract commonly used give guidance as to how the issue of concurrency should be addressed, or analysed. Two organisations (the UK’s Society of Construction Law and the USA’s Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International) have produced guidance documents in the form of a Protocol and a Recommended Practice respectively, aimed at addressing the issues associated with delay and disruption on construction projects that contains an approach for dealing with concurrency. The aim of this pilot research, which was supported by the Chartered Institute of Building Australasia, was to carry out semi-structured qualitative interviews with those involved in the production of the USA’s recommended practice to obtain their opinion of the adequacy of the clauses of the standard forms of contract for dealing with concurrency, and the suitability of the Protocol’s proposed method for dealing with concurrency, for adoption and use on Australian construction projects. Results indicated that the overall approach of the protocol was considered to be correct, but its content needed to be expanded to address some of the issues in more detail, suggesting that an agreed overall standard approach would be beneficial for the industry