Electricians on site, trench still open
The electricians arrive on Monday to pull cables through the ducts. The groundworks subcontractor finished the trench but has not laid the duct on the far run, because the site host's car park was full on Friday. The concrete for the charger bases went in on Thursday and needs time before anything is mounted. The electricians leave, charge for the wasted day, and the project manager rebooks them for a week they are already busy.
Nobody made a mistake. Each crew was working to a plan that had changed without them hearing.
A strict order, managed loosely
Commercial charger work is a chain: survey and design, permits, marking out, trenching, ducting, bases, reinstatement, cable pulling, mounting, connection, commissioning, back-office setup. Each link is often a different crew or subcontractor. The site host controls access and wants bays closed for as short a time as possible. A change at one link ripples down the chain, and the only person who sees the whole chain is the project manager.
- The programme is a spreadsheet updated when the project manager has time.
- Crews hear about changes by phone, or do not.
- Site access windows and bay closures are agreed by email.
- Completion of each stage is not recorded, only assumed.
- Photos of buried work (duct routes, depths as built) are on crew phones.
What wasted days cost
Crews charge for wasted visits, and good subcontractors become less willing to fit you in. Site hosts get frustrated when bays stay closed longer than agreed. Delays push commissioning and revenue start dates back. And missing as-built photos of buried ducts become a real problem the first time someone needs to know where a cable runs.
Car parks are live spaces. Every day a bay stays coned off is a day the site host's customers or staff park somewhere else, and retail and hotel hosts notice. Sequencing problems on your side turn directly into complaints on theirs.
The sequenced plan we build
- Each project is set up from a template of stages you define, with dependencies between them and typical durations your project managers set.
- Each stage is assigned to a crew or subcontractor, who get a simple phone view of their stages across your projects.
- When a crew finishes a stage, they mark it done with the photos your process requires. Buried work has required as-built photos before it can be closed.
- Completing or delaying a stage updates the dates of the stages after it, and tells the crews affected and the site host contact.
- Access windows and bay closures agreed with the site host are part of the plan, so crews see them before they travel.
- A weekly view across projects shows what is on track, what is blocked and why.
| Moment | Today | With the plan |
|---|---|---|
| Stage finished | Phone call, maybe | Marked done with photos |
| Stage delayed | Next crew finds out on site | Dates move, crews told |
| Site access | Email agreement | Shown on each crew's view |
| Buried work record | Crew phones | Required photos on the stage |
| Portfolio view | Project manager's head | Weekly status across projects |
Design, depths and methods remain your engineers' decisions. The plan records who does what, in what order, and when it is done.
Crews who arrive when they can work
Each crew sees their own next stages and hears about delays before they set off. The project manager spends time solving blockers rather than ringing round. Site hosts get fewer surprises. And every project ends with a record of what was buried where, which the maintenance team will be glad of.
The site host also gets something useful: a clear picture of when bays will close and reopen, which they can pass to their own staff and customers instead of discovering cones on the morning.
Signs your projects need sequencing
- Crews have arrived to find the previous stage unfinished.
- The programme is only up to date in the project manager's head.
- Site hosts complain about bays closed longer than agreed.
- As-built photos of duct routes are hard to find.
- Subcontractors charge for wasted visits.