Draper Expertise Validates Your Schedule
Are you concerned about issues with your project schedule? Are the evaluation tools giving you a C grade on your schedule and you don’t understand why? If so, the Draper Schedule X-Ray™ service can help you identify and resolve schedule issues. To learn more and speak with a Draper Consultant you can Contact Us here.
Database driven scheduling software programs such as Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project are powerful tools for performing project planning and analytics. However, for large, complex projects it is very difficult to determine if there are issues with the schedule that can result in major busts down the road.
The Draper Schedule X-Ray™ service has been designed to allow our clients to clearly understand the work plan, strategy and logic inherent in the schedule. The deliverables from the Schedule X-Ray™ clearly define both technical and strategic issues within the schedule that can then be addressed to provide a better schedule.
Draper has a defined process for conducting the Schedule X-Ray™ to provide our clients clear definition of schedule issues and opportunities for improvement that includes:

- OPS/SPS Development – upon receiving the client schedule file (P6/MSP/ASTA) the Draper Consultant will convert the schedule into one of our trademarked Visual Critical Path Diagrams: Overall Project Schedule (OPS) or Summary Project Schedule (SPS). The graphical format of the SPS/OPS provides all stakeholders including executives, owners, contractors, subcontractor and financial partners a tool to easily visualize and comprehend the plan.
- Strategic Schedule Evaluation – upon completion of the conversion to the Draper graphical format, the consultant will conduct a thorough review of the schedule to identify schedule deficiencies and areas for potential improvement including logic issues, gaps in trade flows, stacked trades, duration issues, out of sequence work, etc.
- Technical Schedule Evaluation – the Draper consultant will also identify technical issues with the client schedule including negative lags, finish to start positive lags and activities with long lags. Additionally, the consultant will run the schedule through a licensed schedule evaluation tool using full DMCA Metrics (Schedule Validator©, Rubix , SmartPM©) to identify technical issues with the client’s schedule. To learn more about schedule evaluation tools, see our White Paper that discuss the benefits and pitfalls of using these platforms.
- X-Ray Report/Consultation – upon completion of the schedule evaluation, the consultant will provide both a narrative of the strategic issues identified along with the output of the schedule evaluation tool. The consultant will meet with the client to explain our findings and provide advice on options to address issues and improve the overall effectiveness of the schedule.
In addition to providing our clients a one-time snapshot of their schedule via the Schedule X-Ray™ service, Draper can provide ongoing scheduling services including:
- Schedule Logic Revisions (SLR) – updating the clients schedule logic based upon the outcomes of the X-Ray.
- SPS/OPS Status Updates – the SPS/OPS status readily portrays positive and negative progress during the update period on the original baseline. Additionally, the consultant will run the schedule through the evaluation tools to track schedule validity and execution.
- Time Impact Analysis – expert support in evaluating potential schedule impacts resulting from changes such as differing site conditions, scope additions or procurement delays.
- Recovery Schedule – when project delays occur, during the life of a project, the consultant can create a Recovery Schedule with the least impact to project resources. This is done to show new workflow, that over a set period of time will bring the project back on schedule or at a minimum, reduce the time impact on the project.
- Forensic Delay Analysis – evaluation to support claims resolution, risk management and provide stakeholders with a defensible, fact-based understanding of project performance.
