Earned Value Management Implementation in Small Construction Enterprises: A Comparative Case Study of Concrete Floor Projects
Earned Value Management Implementation in Small Construction Enterprises: A Comparative Case Study of Concrete Floor Projects

Summary/Abstract: Research background: Small and medium-sized construction enterprises in Central European markets lack formalized project controlling systems, making them vulnerable to undetected cost overruns and schedule deterioration. Earned value management has demonstrated efficacy in larger project environments but remains underadopted among SME contractors, with empirical evidence from Czech SME construction contexts absent from literature. Purpose of the article: This study examines whether EVM produces analytically meaningful performance indicators when applied retrospectively to completed contracts of a small Czech construction enterprise specializing in concrete floor systems, and whether cross-contract comparison reveals structurally distinct trajectories. Methods: A retrospective case study was applied to two residential building contracts (Verechov and Zelezna Ruda) executed within the same twelve-month period. Cost performance index, schedule performance index, cost variance, and schedule variance were calculated at phase-boundary checkpoints and visualized as S-curves. Findings & Value added: Both contracts confirmed measurable EVM deviations with structurally distinct trajectories. Verechov maintained favourable performance across all four metrics, while Zelezna Ruda exhibited early schedule advancement followed by pronounced deterioration driven by workforce reduction and a scope modification, a decline captured by schedule variance but undetectable from cost performance index alone. The study demonstrates that the informational prerequisites for EVM adoption already exist within enterprises of this type, that Schedule variance provides critical diagnostic information the schedule performance index cannot supply due to convergence towards unity at project completion, and that S-curve visualization constitutes an accessible monitoring tool.

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