Integrated cost, quality, risk and schedule control through earned value management (EVM)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated earned value management (EVM) approach to control quality, cost, schedule and risk of projects. Design/methodology/approach This study represents a new EVM framework by considering a quality control index. Particularly, some control indices and cumulative buffers are defined by two proposed, methods, namely the linear- and Taguchi-based methods. These methods are implemented in three different projects in different industries. Findings According to the results, integration of the quality index creates a better control situation by providing more accurate information. Hence, project managers could comprehensively monitor the status of important factors to make more precise decisions while maintaining the simplicity of their analysis. Originality/value From the methodological and theoretical features, this paper offers new visions because, to the best of authors' knowledge, no comparable study has been conducted before.