Expect two to three months of preparation before filing, dominated by evidence gathering, plus adjudication time that should be checked against current published figures rather than assumed.
Start with the records request, not the form
The sequence that works begins with an internal records request, because it always uncovers gaps. Configuration histories may be incomplete. The person who wrote a key procedure may have left.
Training records may exist in three systems. Filling those gaps honestly — with reconstructions that are labelled as such — takes weeks. In parallel, the corporate evidence has to be assembled: the ownership link between the entities, and proof that both are operating.
The position description and the knowledge statement are then drafted and usually revised. Only then is the petition filed, and processing times should be read from current published figures at that point. Employers who begin with the filing deadline and work forward almost always file a thinner case than they could have.