Influence of Earned Value Management on the Performance of Construction Projects in Tanzania; Case of Construction Projects in Arusha City

Quality has remained the most important determining index for successful delivery of construction projects. It affects scope, schedule, and cost of a project which in turn influences customer satisfaction. These elements (time, scope, and cost) form the basis for existence and practical application of Earned Value Project Management. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a powerful project management quantitative technique applicable to any industry, for objectively monitoring physical progress of projects. It facilitates the integration of project scope, time and cost objectives and establishment of a baseline plan for performance measurement. However, Earned Value Management does not quantify quality performance progress of projects which is why projects can be delivered on time and cost but fail to achieve acceptable quality specification. Failure to attain technically acceptable levels of quality of construction projects has contributed immensely to project failures. This study assessed the influence of Earned Value Management on Quality performance measurement of Construction Projects. The study adopted a mixed method research design comprising experimental and survey designs. Experimental research design consists of 35 concrete samples randomly selected, tested and subjected to Chi-Squared and Correlation Analysis. The calculated p-value of Chi-Squared test at 34 degrees of freedom () was 0.755, which is far lesser than the critical value of 48.602. The null hypothesis was accepted in that no significant difference was found between expected quality values and observed quality performance results. Analysis of objective two and three of the study found that the calculated p-value of 0.0402 is less than the critical level of 0.05, whereof the null hypotheses were rejected in that there is a strong and positive correlation between the model variables which indicates that Quality Performance Index (QPI) and Quality Variance (QV) are efficient monitoring and control tool for project quality performance. The survey research design was also adopted on a purposive sampling technique covering 38 respondents drawn from 44 construction industry practitioners. Structured questionnaires were used to collect qualitative data and achieved 86 % of responses which were subjected to descriptive statistics. The study found that, 73 % of respondents strongly agreed that lack of knowledge in relation to Earned Value Quality Project Management is the main cause of challenges experienced in integrating quality values into the traditional EVM for quality performance. This study recommended establishment of effective training programmes to the industry practitioners and also establishing sustainable policies to handle quality performance issues in the Tanzania construction sector.