Schedule evolution during the life-time of the LHC project

The Large Hadron Collider Project was approved by the CERN Council in December 1994. The CERN management opted from the beginning of the project for a very aggressive installation planning based on a just-in-time sequencing of all activities. This paper aims to draw how different factors (technical development, procurement, logistics and organization) have impacted on the schedule evolution through the lifetime of the project. It describes the cause effect analysis of the major rescheduling that occurred during the installation of the LHC and presents some general conclusions potentially applicable in other projects.