Early Detection of Construction Project Delays: A Comparative Case Study of Earned Value, Earned Schedule, and Earned Duration Methods on a Building Project at Surabaya

Abstract

Construction project delays can adversely affect cost, productivity, and timely completion. This study compares the performance of the Earned Value Method (EVM), Earned Schedule Method (ESM), and Earned Duration Method (EDM) in detecting schedule delays in the Educational Building Project at Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA), Indonesia. A quantitative case study approach was employed using secondary project data, including schedules, weekly progress reports, S-curves, and work-weight distributions for Weeks 46–56 of project execution. The results show that EVM exhibited the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) convergence phenomenon, in which SPI values remained close to 1.00 despite the occurrence of negative schedule variances. This condition reduced the sensitivity of EVM to schedule deterioration during the late stage of the project. In contrast, ESM identified actual schedule delays through SPI(t) values below 1.00, while EDM showed a continuous decline in SPI(d), indicating a gradual reduction in physical work productivity. Among the three approaches, ESM demonstrated the highest sensitivity to late-stage schedule deviations, whereas EDM provided an early indication of declining project performance. These findings suggest that no single method can fully represent schedule performance throughout the project lifecycle. Therefore, integrating ESM and EDM with EVM for cost monitoring can provide a more comprehensive basis for construction project control.