Measure progress is one of the most important operations in project planning and control. Most of the planning engineers and construction managers prefer to measure the progress using the Earned Value Management (EVM).  However, sometimes it is required to measure the progress using the working hours or what so-called level of efforts. in this article, I will explain why and how we could measure the construction projects progress using working hours.

A: Why we measure the progress using money or Earned Value Analysis (EVA)?

According to PMI ” EVA provides a method that permits the project to be measured by progress achieved. The project manager is then able, using the progress measured, to forecast a project’s total cost and date of completion, based on trend analysis or application of the project’s “burn rate”. This method relies on a key measure known as the project’s earned value.” Accordingly, we need to convert all the project activities into similar pieces of work and each piece of work should have its own weight (quantity). Therefore, the cost is used in the earned value management to evaluate the progress since the cost of the project can be summed among the project. Using this method we are comparing apple to apple.

Example of using Earned Value to Measure the progress:

1- Activity 1 cost = 100 USD

2- Activity 2 cost = 500 USD

3- Activity 3 cost = 1000 USD.

Accordingly, the project budget cost = 100 + 500 + 1000 = 1,600 USD.

Progress update: Activity 1 % complete = 10%, Activity 2 % complete = 40%, Activity 3 % complete = 20%

Earned value = 10% * 100 + 40% * 500 + 20% * 1000 = 410 USD

Progress % complete = 410/1600 = 25.62%

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B: Whay measaring progress using working hours?

There are 3 main reasons for using working hours as an alternative or supportive method to Earned Value to measure the progress:

1- Problems in the project cost loading: When there are problems in the project cost loading it will affect the results of progress percentages. Such problems as frontloading where the contractor assigns more cost for substructure and less cost for superstructure and finishes to gain cash flow at the beginning of the project. Another example of cost loading problems is to have equipment with a very high price where the efforts involved in procuring and installing this equipment does not worth the progress % assigned by cost.

2- Another evaluation criteria: Sometimes it is good to have more than one evaluation criteria especially in big construction projects where you need accurate reports a much as you can.

3- Lack of cost information: In some cases, the cost could be hard to be determined at the beginning of the project. Like the cost-plus contracts, the client could select cheap or expensive materials, but the working hours are the same.

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C: How to measure progress using working hours?

Very similar to the EVM, we need to convert all the activities into working hours. taking sample example of the EVM we will see different results as follow.

Example of using working hours to Measure the progress:

1- Activity 1 hours= 1000 hours

2- Activity 2 hours= 100 hours

3- Activity 3 hours= 500 hours.

Accordingly, the project budget cost = 1000 + 100 + 500 = 1,600 hours.

Progress update: Activity 1 % complete = 10%, Activity 2 % complete = 40%, Activity 3 % complete = 20%

Earned hours= 10% * 1000 + 40% * 100 + 20% * 500 = 240 hours

Progress % complete = 240/1600 = 15%