Combined Application of Earned Value Management and Last Planner System in Construction Projects

Abstract

The application of the Last Planner System (LPS)in the construction industry is increasing more and more. Reviews in the literature report that by applying LPS project performance is improving. However practical experience shows that there is some lack of structure in daily work. Further more researchers are still looking for feasible process measurement.This paper aims to contribute to the described challenge by developing a concept for the combined application of the two following methods. One is Earned Value Management (EVM), a project control method that combines data regarding scope, schedule, and resources to assess project performance and progress. The other one is LPS, a Lean Construction method for production planning and control. In LPS project workflow is developed and controlled collaboratively within a team. Through the combined application of these two methods based on the structure and a transparent production plan the project's workflow can be measured by objective metrics like Percent Plan Complete (PPC), Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) to highlight the need for potentially necessary corrective action. KEYWORDSLean construction, last planner system, earned value management, process measurement, work structuring.

Application of the Last Planner® System in a Sports Infrastructure Project in Peru

“…Consequently, the joint application of EVM and LPS could lead to a holistic progress measurement of a project considering both quantifiable metrics like schedule and costs but also factors like quality of workflow and collaboration. (Novinsky et al, 2018)  Diagnostic: Balandron (2017) mentioned a tool developed by the Centro de Excelencia en Gestión de Producción de la Pontificia Universidad Católica, (GEPUC) that permits to evaluate the level of implementation of LPS in projects.…”

Using Reasons for Non-Compliance to Assess Project Performance in the Last Planner System®

“…LPS exercises control at the three scopes. Traditional methods such as EVM are used to monitor schedule, budget and scope at the long-term (Novinsky et al 2018;Ponz-Tienda et al 2015). At mid-term, control is focused on work preparation and constraint removal.…”

Conceptual Foundations for a New Lean Bim-Based Production System in Construction

“…Regarding new functionalities and in addition to already mentioned individual BIM and LPS strengths, we have identified three major aspects for potential improvement, which consequently will be added into the integration model. These three aspects are (1) elements of the Scrum method, as a representative for agile project management (APM) techniques, the (2) implementation of a digital Kanban board to make use of both the Kanban method itself and enhanced visualization capabilities of digital whiteboards and (3) adding features of the Earned Value Management (EVM) project control system since LPS lacks in controlling cost performance (Novinsky et al 2018).…”

“…Complementary applications of LPS and EVM have been recently investigated in Novinsky et al (2018); Zhang et al (2018) and disclosed their mutual fit. Since positive findings in Novinsky et al (2018) were only related to the design phase, we want to extend the joint application also to the execution phase.…”

“…Before or during planning the phases, roughly calculated costs will be associated to each DPK which will represent the PV with respect to EVM. Differently to as proposed in Novinsky et al (2018) and Zhang et al (2018), underlying quantities do not have to be estimated, but constitute given information as an inherent part of the linked BIM objects. Nonetheless further DPK can be added anytime to the board when the pull planning process reveals need of other prerequisites or hand-offs.…”