Construction Corporate Schedulers

Construction Scheduler — the schedule is only worth what the field data going into it is worth

Our client is a masonry contracting firm in the US Eastern time zone, in business since 1959 and working from ten regional offices across the US Southeast, Texas and the Mid-Atlantic. The scope runs from block and brick to cast stone and stone veneer, through the envelope behind the wall face, and into repair and restoration on existing buildings.

One thing shapes this job more than anything else. The firm works as the masonry trade contractor under large general contractors, so you will not own the project master schedule. You own the masonry scope schedule, and it has to sit inside a master that moves underneath you, driven by trades you do not control. Your float is not always yours to spend, and when the job slips for a reason that is not ours, the schedule you keep is the evidence for it.

Most of your week goes on two things. Getting real progress out of a busy field team, which is a collection problem before it is a scheduling one. And watching procurement, because long lead items drive more delay on a masonry scope than the laying does. The hours sit opposite the people you support, so you need to keep moving when an answer is twelve hours away, and mark an assumption rather than quietly build on it.

Key Responsibilities

Project Scheduling

• Develop detailed baseline schedules for construction projects in accordance with contract requirements and project objectives.
• Develop activity sequences, durations, logic relationships, milestones and critical path activities.
• Coordinate schedule development with project managers, superintendents, engineers, subcontractors and other project stakeholders.
• Ensure schedules accurately reflect project scope, contract requirements and planned construction methods.
• Establish and maintain schedule coding, calendars, work breakdown structures and activity classifications.

Schedule Updates and Progress Tracking

• Update project schedules regularly based on actual field progress and information provided by the project team.
• Collect and verify progress information from field personnel, subcontractors, vendors and other stakeholders.
• Track actual start and finish dates, remaining durations, percentage complete, quantities and milestones.
• Compare planned progress against actual progress and identify variances.
• Maintain accurate records of schedule changes, revisions and project milestones.

Schedule Analysis

• Monitor the critical path and near-critical activities.
• Identify potential delays, schedule risks and impacts to project milestones.
• Evaluate the impact of changes, RFIs, submittals, procurement issues, design changes, weather events and other factors affecting the schedule.
• Provide recommendations to the project team on schedule mitigation and recovery strategies.
• Assist with time-impact analysis and extension-of-time evaluations when required.

Coordination and Reporting

• Work closely with project management and field operations so schedule information reflects current project conditions.
• Participate in project coordination, progress and scheduling meetings.
• Prepare weekly and monthly schedule reports for project management and clients.
• Communicate schedule changes and potential impacts to relevant project stakeholders.

Look-Ahead Planning

• Develop and maintain detailed short-term and look-ahead schedules.
• Coordinate upcoming activities with field supervision and subcontractors.
• Identify constraints that could prevent planned work from progressing.
• Track required materials, manpower, equipment, inspections, approvals and other prerequisites.
• Assist the project team in developing recovery schedules when required.

Change Management

• Incorporate approved change orders, design changes, scope changes and other modifications into project schedules.
• Assess schedule impacts associated with changes and delays.
• Maintain a clear record of schedule revisions and changes to key milestones.
• Coordinate with project controls and commercial teams on schedule impacts to cost and contract requirements.

Project Closeout

• Track completion of outstanding construction activities, inspections, punch-list items, commissioning and turnover requirements.
• Maintain the schedule through project completion and closeout.
• Support the preparation of final schedule reports and project documentation.
• Assist with collecting schedule information for lessons learned and historical project data.

• Three to seven years in construction scheduling, project controls or construction management, developing and maintaining schedules on commercial, industrial, civil, infrastructure or comparable projects.
• Hands-on experience with Primavera P6, Microsoft Project or an equivalent CPM scheduling platform — building and updating schedules yourself, not receiving reports produced from one.
• A working understanding of critical path methodology and schedule logic: relationship types, lags, float, and what a constraint does to a calculation.
• Experience updating a schedule from real field progress — actual dates, remaining durations, percentage complete and quantities — and reporting schedule performance from it.
• Able to interpret construction drawings, specifications, contracts and project documentation.
• Strong Microsoft Excel: comfortable comparing two exports against each other with a lookup, a match or a pivot.
• Clear written and spoken English. You will write schedule narratives and reports that general contractors read, and what you send goes out as written.
• Available full time on a US Eastern schedule, with a machine that runs scheduling software comfortably, connectivity stable enough for shared-screen calls, and somewhere quiet to take them.

Preferred Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in construction management, engineering, project management, business or a related field.
• Primavera P6 specifically, at the level of building a baseline and writing the narrative that goes with it, rather than only updating one.
• Experience scheduling a trade scope inside a general contractor’s master schedule, rather than owning the master.
• Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Oracle Primavera Cloud or a similar construction project-management platform.
• Experience with delay analysis, time-impact analysis or recovery scheduling, or with earned value and other project-controls methodologies.
• Exposure to masonry, envelope, facade or structural packages specifically.
• PSP, PMI-SP, PMP or CCM certification.
• Having already worked a construction project remotely for a team in another country, rather than from the site office.

Tools & Software

• Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project (the client will confirm which at offer stage).
• Microsoft Excel, Word and Outlook.
• A construction project-management platform such as Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud or Oracle Primavera Cloud.
• Microsoft Teams and OneDrive.
• Hubstaff for time tracking.

What Makes You a Great Fit

• You know the critical path is the least-float path and that it moves, and you watch near-critical float because that is where the next delay comes from.
• You treat a number from the field as something to verify, not something to type in. A remaining duration that has not moved in a month is a question.
• You would rather report a slip than force a date. If a milestone will not calculate, you fix the plan or you report it.
• You publish look-aheads that can actually be worked, because you checked the material, the approval, the preceding trade and the access first.
• You bring options, not just news. A date that has moved arrives with what recovers it and what that costs.
• You will fit a firm that puts honesty and integrity at the head of its stated principles. An honest schedule and a useful one are the same document.
• You are comfortable working while the people you support are asleep, and you flag an assumption rather than publishing on one.