901. Earned Height Management: A New Extension to EVM for High-Rise Construction
- Author
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Khuzam, Shadi Abu and Khuzam, Shadi Abu
- Abstract
The thirty-year-old Earned Value method has been playing a central role in managing projects and reporting progress. Some project managers have critically criticized it, others have trusted it, but all have used it. For a professional project manager working in the “vertical” construction field in Dubai, applying the EVM as-presently-is in managing high-rise buildings construction is like applying a general theory to a very particular wide-spread case. Here, there’s no real problem, but opportunity for further optimization. In this research, the opportunity of creating useful tools specific for high-rise construction has been grasped. The theory here combines the EVM principles with energy theories. The factor of “Height” added to, and stressed in, the original formula of EVM describes the progress (or earning) in the work in the form of potential energy stored in the building at high levels. Looking at it from yet another angle, the building is the “Sum” of all the work needed to complete the whole of the end deliverable. The sum of product of the forces exerted by the displacement of materials to the appropriate place (height) makes the whole of the project. This research attempts to use the height (as an element of the energy and work theories) to enhance the EVM in reporting vertical progress. The method developed in this attempt, Earned Height Management (EHM), uses the planned and achieved heights of both the top of the building and the, here-introduced, “value center” of the building. The research focuses on two main variables at all times: Total Height (TH) and Earned Height (EH). The first one gives indication about the progress of the skeleton (here referred to as “structure” and can be considered as the “driving activity” or “locomotive”), and the second about the entire earned value in the form of height. Monitoring these two variables gives this method irrefutable edge over the original EVM and its derivatives since EHM tells at a glance whether the str
- Published
- 2008