One of the main disruptions of COVID-19 has been the burden placed on businesses to shut down and re-open with changing rules and protocols. For construction projects, which involve carefully planned timing of various phases and coordination with subcontractors and suppliers, this is especially problematic.

Pathfinder, a global project management company, launched Project Slowdown/Restart. The planning initiative is intended specifically to help engineering and construction industries restart projects that shut down due to the pandemic.

Around the world, the engineering and construction sector is rebounding and companies are ready to restart and complete projects that were put on hold. Many aspects, including staffing, contract issues, labor support, partially completed construction packages, materials storage and protection, secured and sanitized infrastructure, and a number of other related issues have considerable impact on restart plans and must be handled properly.

To restart a construction project, managers need to go beyond updating the schedule and address a host of issues, including implementing any new measures associated with the impacts of COVID-19. Pathfinder developed this efficient and effective program incorporating the benefits of proven research from the Construction Industry Institute (CII)

The Project Slowdown/Restart planning initiative modifies the CII Construction Readiness Assessment (CRA) tool to incorporate COVID-19 and other project slowdown issues. Integrated with the Construction Restart Execution Plan, the tool has successfully demonstrated the benefits of addressing typical and atypical (the pandemic) construction restart issues.

The initiative takes a five-phase approach. It can be adapted depending on how far a project had progressed when it shut down. The phases are: project slowdown conditions, project restart objectives, identify restart gaps (CRA), closure of gaps and project restart.

Restarting a project is not as simple as just updating the schedule to the new restart date. Many issues need to be addressed, including the implementation of new measures as a result of COVID-19 impacts.