IWP aging is the number a workface planning program watches first. A package scoped for 7 to 10 days that stays open longer means a constraint escaped the system, and someone is paying craft rates while it waits.
The Metrics a Construction Contractor Tracks
Procedures that take workface planning seriously ask the construction contractor for a short list of numbers every week.
- Percentage of IWPs open in the field for more than 10 days
- Percentage of IWPs on HOLD
- Percentage of IWPs completed on time
- Percentage of IWPs not used in the last week
- IWP actuals against the plan in the 4 week lookahead
- Lookahead full-time equivalents compared with current manpower
- Daily productivity by foreman and by IWP
- Material received by CWP, and CWPs started and completed on time
Aging sits at the top because it is the earliest of them, since productivity only confirms a problem after the hours have been spent and an aged package shows it while the package is still open.
What an Aged Package Tells the Superintendent
There are three usual readings. The constraint list was incomplete when the package was released. The scope was larger than one crew could finish in the window, which is a sizing fault described in IWP Sizing for One Foreman and Crew. Or the crew was pulled onto another package, which means the lookahead was rewritten in the field without anyone changing the plan. Each reading has a different fix and the same first step, which is to open the package before asking the crew.
Backlog Depth Is the Other Half of the Picture
Aging says whether released work is flowing. Backlog depth says whether there is enough ready work ahead. It is measured in weeks of constraint-free packages per discipline against a target, and it falls below target weeks before a crew runs out of work, which is the point of measuring it. A superintendent who sees two weeks of ready pipe work against a four week target knows to lean on engineering and materials now, while there is still time for the EWP and the PWP to land.
How a Skyline Shows Both
Packages are stacked by week, with readiness and warnings on each card, and the stack can be grouped by state or by discipline. Aged packages sit in past weeks, still open. Thin columns in the coming weeks show backlog depth falling. One chart carries both signals, and the lookahead meeting talks about specific packages by name. What a Skyline Shows covers how to read it. Skyline, the free Power BI visual, draws the chart from the IWP register with five skyline types, and the Releases page in openAWP shows backlog depth per discipline against the target.
AWPBI's workface planning service stewards these numbers on the project's own register, and the register and the software stay with the client when the engagement ends.