Acceleration cost: what this calculator produces
This calculator assembles the resourcing cost of a period of acceleration and sets out the arithmetic by which that figure was produced. It is directed to the quantum of an acceleration claim and proceeds on the footing that the question of instruction has already been resolved.
The inputs are the resources actually applied during the period: overtime hours together with the normal hourly labour cost and the overtime premium; additional crew hours and their hourly cost; additional plant hours and their hourly cost; and any recorded labour inefficiency expressed as a percentage. Additional materials and other costs of acceleration are entered under separate fields. A further field records the prolongation cost which the acceleration was intended to avoid, so that the two figures are presented side by side rather than being netted off without any record of the exercise.
The output comprises a gross recorded acceleration cost and a net acceleration scenario, connected by a calculation bridge which shows how the one is derived from the other. Each figure retains the units and the stated basis on which it was entered into the calculator.
The limit of the exercise is stated on the calculator itself and applies with equal force to this description. What the calculator records is a resourcing scenario, and it records nothing beyond that. It does not establish that an instruction was given, that an acceleration event occurred, or that the cost was caused by the matter complained of, all of which remain questions for the contract and the evidence.
Because rates change over the life of a project, the calculator asks for the assessment date and for a reference to the instruction, the time sheets and the rates which underlie each figure. A calculation which cannot be traced to a contemporaneous document will carry little weight when the claim comes to be tested.