Applying and assessing performance of earned duration management control charts for EPC project duration monitoring

In this study, earned duration management (EDM) is used as a statistical project control method to monitor the performance of engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects. It represents an extension of the well-known earned value management (EVM) and earned schedule management (ESM) methodologies. In contrast to the latter techniques, which use cost-based data as proxies for assessing the project duration performance, EDM uses time-based metrics for its evaluation. In this method, control charts are employed to monitor deviations during project execution and to identify special sources of variation, interpreted as evidence of real risk of project delays. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to determine the control limits. The major contribution of this study lies both in the use of control charts with control limits obtained by simulations to monitor the new duration performance index (DPI) in a real EPC project, and in the assessment of its performance compared with that of the traditional EVM and ESM indexes. The results of computational experiments demonstrated generally good performance characteristics of the proposed control charts and suggest that the DPI potentially can be used as a promising metric for monitoring the project duration performance.