ALDOT CPM scheduling requirements: Standard Specifications Article 108.03
The Alabama Department of Transportation states its scheduling requirement in the body of its own book, at Article 108.03, "Progress Schedule of Operations", of the Standard Specifications for Highway Construction, 2026 Edition — the signed copy carries the date 19 November 2025, and the book supersedes the 2022 edition. The article has two parts: 108.03(a) governs a bar graph schedule and 108.03(b) governs a Critical Path Method schedule. There is no separate scheduling special provision to find; the requirements are in the specification every contract incorporates by reference, subject to whatever special provisions a particular contract adds.
No copyright notice was found. The title page and the document metadata were both checked. The foreword states that the book is a compilation prepared for insertion by reference into Alabama construction contracts, and that special provisions may revise or amend it.
Two thresholds, stated in working days and calendar days
What makes Article 108.03 unusual among the specifications read for this site is that it sets the schedule type by an explicit duration threshold rather than by a project tier, a dollar value or a checkbox in the proposal.
- A bar graph schedule of operations on Form C-10 is required where contract time exceeds 90 working days or 180 calendar days, submitted before the preconstruction conference. The Contractor may instead submit a CPM schedule as a PDF where it carries the same information, and the Engineer may order a bar graph on a shorter project where it is thought necessary for project control.
- A CPM schedule is required where contract time exceeds 240 working days or 480 calendar days, and 108.03(b) states that it is used in place of the bar graph schedule in evaluating progress.
So a project can sit in three bands — below the bar graph threshold, between the two, and above the CPM threshold — and which band a project is in depends on a contract fact, the stated contract time, that is not recorded anywhere in a schedule file.
What Article 108.03(b) requires
| Requirement | What the 2026 Edition states | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling software | No product is named. The clause constrains the settings rather than the tool: out-of-sequence progress handled through retained logic, progress override not permitted, progress computed on percent complete, automatic resource levelling prohibited, and changes recorded in the activity notebook field | 108.03(b)3 |
| Baseline deadline | Within 30 calendar days of notice to proceed, or at the preconstruction conference where that comes first, submitted to the Area Construction Engineer or Local Transportation Engineer | 108.03(b) |
| Agency review | 14 calendar days for the Engineer to respond in writing, accept, or call a meeting to resolve what prevents acceptance. The Contractor submits a corrected schedule within 7 calendar days after that meeting, and the cycle repeats | 108.03(b)1 |
| Update frequency | Monthly, submitted within 3 calendar days after the monthly estimate cut-off date or another mutually agreed date. The data date of each update must correspond with the monthly estimate cut-off date. Actual completion dates are included for activities completed. The Engineer has 14 calendar days from the monthly schedule meeting | 108.03(b)2 |
| Look-ahead | At each monthly meeting, a planning schedule in Gantt chart format covering the six weeks ahead, together with the items of work finished over the two weeks just past, with critical path activities designated as the currently accepted CPM schedule determines them | 108.03(b)2 |
| Narrative | Required with the baseline and with every monthly update. The update narrative must state whether the project is on, ahead of, or behind schedule and, where it is ahead or behind, the specific number of calendar days; where behind, it must include a detailed recovery plan. It also carries critical path movement over the last and next 30 days, logic and original duration changes with the basis for each, activities needing Department participation, a milestone report, submittal and procurement status, and an explanation of the calendars | 108.03(b)1, (b)2 |
| Other required submittals | A Gantt chart printed in colour on 11×17 paper and as PDF; an Activity Report; a Software Settings Report — the schedule log file showing the settings named in 108.03(b) were used; the raw electronic data file from the scheduling software; and all project calendars, showing holidays, non-workdays, contractor vacation and weather allowances | 108.03(b)1 |
| Revised schedule trigger | For the bar graph, a revision within ten days of a major change, a granted time extension, or the Engineer's request. For the CPM schedule, the Engineer may require a revised and resubmitted update, or reject the current update and allow the change to be carried into the next month, depending on the nature of the change | 108.03(a), (b)2 |
| Time impact analysis | Yes. A time extension request must carry, at a minimum, a descriptive summary of the changes, an analysis of project impact, a fragnet showing the impacted activities before the change, and a fragnet showing them after. An analysis without that documentation will not be reviewed. Extensions route to Article 108.09 | 108.03(b)4 |
| Float ownership | Neither the Department nor the Contractor holds float for its exclusive use or benefit. Total float is defined as late finish minus early finish; free float as the delay an activity can absorb without affecting its earliest successor | 108.03(b)3 |
| Float suppression | A named list is cause for rejection of the schedule or its updates: preferential sequencing; lead and lag restraints used as logic; constraints forcing total or free float to zero; activity times stretched beyond need; constraint dates the contract did not call for, and illogical relationships used to consume non-critical float | 108.03(b)3 |
| Negative float | Not a basis for requesting a time extension. Where negative float shows a scheduled completion later than the contract completion date, the Department may use that in computing payment withholdings — and the clause adds that using it this way does not amount to acceleration | 108.03(b)3 |
| Activity durations | Non-procurement activities 20 workdays or less, and no more than one contractor or subcontractor per activity, unless the Engineer allows otherwise | 108.03(b)3e |
| Logic | Only two open-ended activities are allowed — the first and the last. Progressed activities that show progress without predecessor completion need prior approval | 108.03(b)3f, 3h |
| Constraints | Permitted only for Project Start and Project Completion, and constraints cannot override logic. Any other constraint needs specific approval with the rationale submitted, and where one is allowed, the rationale goes in the notebook field on the activity. Mandatory start and mandatory finish constraints are stated to break network logic, and are not to be used | 108.03(b)3g |
| Payment | Use of CPM, software, submittals and incidentals is a subsidiary obligation of Mobilization, not measured separately. Scheduled mobilization payments may be reduced or withheld until the initial schedule or a monthly update is reviewed and accepted, by an amount set at 10% of the Mobilization lump sum total | 108.03(b)7 |
A settings report, and why it is a different kind of deliverable
Several specifications compared on this site name a scheduling option. Article 108.03(b) does two further things with them.
First, it fixes a set of them together: out-of-sequence progress is handled through retained logic and progress override is stated not to be allowed; progress is computed on percent complete; automatic resource levelling is prohibited outright, both as a scheduling practice and, in the float clause, where it is used to adjust durations so as to consume float and influence the critical path.
Second, and less commonly, it asks for evidence that those settings were the ones in force — the Software Settings Report is described as the schedule log file showing the settings were used during implementation of the project schedule, and the raw software data file is required alongside it.
That distinction matters when reading any schedule file. A scheduling export records the option values stored in the project, and a reviewer can read those values back. What an export does not record is whether those values were in force at the moment the dates in the file were computed; a project's options can be changed after a calculation. Asking for the log is one way of narrowing that gap. P6 schedule options sets out what each option changes and which of them an export carries.
Negative float attached to withholdings
Most of the specifications read here treat negative float as a symptom to be narrated and repaired. 108.03(b)3 also states an arithmetic use for it: a a negative float value showing scheduled completion later than the contract completion date is something the Department may use when it computes payment withholdings — and the clause adds that doing so does not amount to acceleration.
Negative float on an imported schedule is a computed quantity, and which number you get depends on what the backward pass ran from. This project computes its own forward and backward pass and reports the float it derives alongside the float the file states, saying which number it used where the two differ. It does not determine whether a delay is excusable, does not apportion responsibility between the parties, and does not compute a withholding. Total float and free float covers the mechanics and float ownership the clause family.
Two fragnets, before and after
The time extension requirement at 108.03(b)4 is short and specific: a summary of the changes, an analysis of project impact, a fragnet of the impacted activities before the change, and a fragnet of the same activities after it. The clause then states that an analysis submitted without that documentation will not be reviewed or considered.
It also sets a threshold on the extension itself: an extension is considered only to the extent that a delay to an activity uses up more than the total float carried on the critical paths of the schedule currently accepted. That makes the currently accepted schedule, and the float it carries, the reference against which a request is measured — which in turn makes the monthly update obligation part of the delay remedy rather than only a reporting duty.
This project compares two schedules and reports what changed between them — activities added or removed, logic and duration changes, date movement. Whether an impact is excusable or compensable, and how much time is due, are determined by the reviewing authority. Time impact analysis and delay analysis methods compared set out the families of method; extension of time covers the clause type.
What this page does not tell you
- It does not tell you which clauses govern your project. The incorporated contract documents govern — the edition named in the contract and every special provision attached to it. The foreword states plainly that special provisions may revise or amend these requirements, so an agency name alone establishes nothing about which text binds.
- Only Article 108.03 was read for this page. Article 108.09, which 108.03(b)4 refers time extensions to, and the claims provisions in Section 110 were not read clause by clause. An absence here is an absence in what was read.
- The thresholds depend on a contract fact. Whether a project exceeds 240 working days or 480 calendar days is stated in the contract, not in a schedule file, so nothing in a schedule settles which schedule type is required.
- Every deadline in the table is a fact about a submission. A schedule carries a data date; it does not carry the date it was submitted, the date of notice to proceed, or the monthly estimate cut-off date it was meant to match. The data-date rule is the one that comes closest to being decidable, and even that needs the cut-off date supplied from outside the file.
- There is no rule pack behind this page. It rests on a reading of the specification text, with each requirement cited to the clause it came from. Nothing in this engine checks a schedule against these clauses today.
- This project computes and reports; it does not decide submissions. Whether a schedule is acceptable, whether a constraint or an open end was permitted, and whether more contract time is due, are determined by the reviewing authority.
Related pages
- How state DOT scheduling specifications compare.
- Neighbouring readings: Tennessee DOT · South Carolina DOT · Virginia DOT.
- P6 schedule options — retained logic, progress override, and what an export records.
- Schedule constraints · lags and leads · activity durations and logic.
- Float ownership · total float and free float.
- Time impact analysis · extension of time · recovery schedules.
- Schedule narrative · baseline schedule submission.
- Glossary — fragnet, retained logic, total float, look-ahead.
- What the engine does and its limitations.
- The methods this project uses and the standards map.