Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Abstract:
Considering the fact that time and cost overrun are the bane of projects carried out in all sectors of the economy the world over, leading to project abandonment in many instances, the present research is intended to proffer a solution to this twin problem. There has been general acceptance of Earned Value Management (EVM) philosophy to this problem for possible solution since it was first conceived in 1967 to the extent that the Primevera software package has since been developed using this concept. Despite this wide acceptance, the methodology used in establishing the key indexes most importantly the technique used in determining the project duration with their accompanying costs has not been clearly defined and one may wonder whether it is on the basis of Gantt chart or network scheduling technique (CPM, PERT, GERT) which will ultimately affect the spending pattern of the budget. Although it is often stated that time is money, it is very inappropriate to extend the logic in the reverse order by using monetary value (budget) to calculate the schedule performance index (SPI) and schedule variance (SV) as postulated by EVM methodology. It is in the light of these flaws that the claims to its success in project monitoring and control is seriously in doubt. Expenditure or cost control loop has been found to offer a better alternative as could be attested to by looking at post-mortem examination of two borehole projects sponsored by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Abia State of Nigeria which had shown an impressive result based on this methodology than the EVM concept. This model which incorporates Cost Performance index (CPI) can be used for cost performance analysis between projects and can also give an indication as to whether the cost estimate is tight or loose.

Keywords: Network Scheduling Technique, Cost Performance Index, S-Curve, Project Monitoring

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