EVM-BASED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION IN DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Authors:

Narendra Singh, Payel Das*, Awdhesh Kumar, Rohit Pathak

Invertis University, Uttar Pradesh, India

Introduction

Construction business is a key economic activity in global growth and advancement in infrastructure and development of cities (Cucos & Turcan, 2025). Although the sector has strategic significance, it has been facing long-term performance issues especially regarding cost-overruns, schedule delays and poor use of resources. In every empirical investigation, it has always been established that a significant percentage of construction projects either go beyond their original budgets and do not match planned schedules (Flyvbjerg et al., 2022). Not only do such inefficiencies affect financial sustainability but also cast doubt over stakeholders and interfere with the overall economic goals. As a result, proper project performance evaluation has emerged as a very important issue among researchers and practitioners.

Conventional methods of project monitoring within construction normally depend on individual cost accounting systems and schedule tracking instruments. Although these mechanisms are useful in giving information, they tend to be disintegrated and one may hardly evaluate the overall project health in a comprehensive manner (Hasan et al., 2021). An example is, a project might seem to be under control financially in terms of expenditure reports and at the same time be facing a slippage in terms of schedule that will eventually increase the costs. Lack of an integrated performance measurement framework means that the project managers lack the power to read the early warning signs and take corrective actions early enough (Galjanic et al., 2023).

In a bid to overcome these shortcomings, Earned Value Management (EVM) has come out as a well-known approach to measuring performance. EVM combines a scope, time, and cost into a single analytical tool, which allows evaluating the efficiency and progress of the project objective (Proaño-Narváez et al., 2022). Through Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV), and Actual Cost (AC), EVM produces quantitative data in the form of Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI). These indices give early warnings about deviations and aid in the prediction systems like Estimate at Completion (EAC). EVM, unlike a traditional monitoring system, has the ability to predict, as opposed to providing a report in a descriptive manner.

Even though the application of EVM has been broadly used in defense, engineering, and infrastructure projects, there are special challenges associated with its application in construction projects (Sunarti et al., 2018). The construction environments are dynamic and are marked by the changing material prices, labor variability, disruption caused by the weather and the alteration of the design. Physical progress measurement, which is an essential interest in EV calculation, has not yet been easily obtained in practice. Moreover, incoherent information systems and slow financial reporting tends to impair the quality of EVM results (Lev, 2018). Accordingly, in construction environments, the entire power of EVM as a predictive decision-support tool is not necessarily achieved.

Over the past few years, the construction project management practices have undergone a tremendous change following the rapid development of digital technologies. The digitalization has brought about live data capture, automated reporting and combined data platforms that promote accountability and transparency. BIM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and IoT-based monitoring systems have allowed tracking the physical progress, financial spending and resource use continuously. With proper integration, these digital tools can address the long-term constraints of implementations of manual EVM.

BIM provides the creation of smart digital models of the construction work, allowing real-time connections of the design, schedule (4D), and cost (5D) dimensions. ERP systems also consolidate financial and procurement information and real costs are recorded properly and in time. Monitoring based on the IoT provides the accuracy of progress measurement by sensor-based monitoring of equipment and materials. All these digital technologies together form an ecosystem in which it is possible to compute EVM metrics automatically and dynamically update them. This integration is characterized by a change in the project control to be retrospective to be able to give predictions and proactive control.

Although digital technologies and EVM are theoretically compatible, there is a lack of empirical studies on the topic of their combined implementation in active construction settings. The literature usually examines EVM performance individually or assesses digital construction tools without connecting it to formal performance measurement systems. It has a significant deficiency of case-based studies that reveal how digital data streams can contribute to increasing the reliability and responsiveness as well as forecasting accuracy of EVM indicators like CPI, SPI, and EAC. Moreover, there has been little studies evaluating whether the digital integration has any significant contribution to variance detection at an earlier stage and prediction of future costs in construction projects.

The gap should be addressed to promote theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of construction performance management. Theoretically, the integration of digital technologies and EVM can help develop models of project control in the times of Industry 4.0. In practical terms, proving that it is possible to make a tangible change in terms of forecasting performance and decision-making quality can be used to promote the implementation of data-driven management systems in the construction industry.

Hence, this research paper will be an evaluation of construction projects performance through EVM in a digitally empowered monitoring space. In particular, the research aims are: (1) to evaluate the cost and schedule performance based on EVM measures; (2) to review the validity of forecasting based on the EAC estimates using CPI measures; and (3) to evaluate how digital integration would contribute to the reliability and responsiveness of performance assessment. The research is conducted using a quantitative case study approach that will provide empirical data on the success of digital-EVM integration and will also offer practical implications to the construction managers interested in enhancing the project control mechanisms.

The rest of this paper will be organized in the following way. Section 2 is a review of pertinent literature regarding EVM development and digital performance monitoring. Section 3 includes the methodology and analytical framework of the research. Section 4 talks about performance trends and empirical findings. Lastly, conclusions and directions of future research are drawn.