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| Illustration by Ai |
The Bunglai Road Reconstruction Project in Banjar Regency, South Kalimantan, was projected to finish in January 2026. However, researchers found that integrating Microsoft Project with the Earned Value Method (EVM) could accelerate completion by four weeks, allowing the project to finish in mid-November 2025. The study was conducted by Rizka Aprilia and H. Muhammad Humaidi from Banjarmasin State Polytechnic (Politeknik Negeri Banjarmasin) and published in the International Journal of Integrative Research (IJIR) in 2026. The findings demonstrate how data-driven project management can improve construction efficiency while keeping costs under control.
Road infrastructure plays a vital
role in regional economic development by improving mobility, logistics, and
public safety. The Bunglai Road is part of the Banjarbaru–Batulicin alternative
route and has long been recognized as a high-risk accident location due to its
sharp horizontal curves and steep mountainous terrain. To address these safety
concerns, the South Kalimantan Provincial Government initiated a major
reconstruction project aimed at improving the road’s geometric design and
overall driving safety.
Despite its strategic importance,
the project encountered significant implementation challenges. Critical
activities—including earth excavation, rock excavation, and aggregate pavement
construction—fell behind schedule because of difficult topography, heavy
rainfall, and repeated mechanical failures of heavy equipment. As delays
accumulated, both project duration and operational costs became increasingly
difficult to manage.
A Data-Driven Approach to
Project Control
Aprilia and Humaidi analyzed the
project using contract documents, the cost budget plan, S-curve scheduling
data, weekly progress reports, and actual expenditure records. The
reconstruction project had a contract value of approximately IDR 23.08
billion and a planned duration of 180 calendar days, equivalent to 19
weeks.
The researchers rebuilt the
project schedule in Microsoft Project to identify critical activities
and simulate alternative scheduling scenarios. They then applied the Earned
Value Method (EVM), a project management technique that compares planned
work, completed work, and actual spending to evaluate both schedule and cost
performance throughout construction.
This combination enabled the
researchers to detect project deviations early and estimate future financial
and scheduling risks before they became irreversible.
Delays Reached Their Peak in
Week 13
The analysis revealed that the
project entered its most critical phase during the middle of construction. By Week
13, actual physical progress had reached only 60.10%, while the
planned cumulative progress was 80.71%. This represented a negative
schedule deviation of 20.61%, indicating that major construction
activities had fallen substantially behind the baseline schedule.
Performance indicators also
reflected deteriorating project conditions. The Schedule Performance Index
(SPI) remained below 1.0 from Week 2 through Week 17, confirming continuous
delays. Meanwhile, the Cost Performance Index (CPI) dropped below 1.0
beginning in Week 11 and again during Weeks 13–17, signaling that actual
project expenditures had started exceeding the value of completed work.
The worst financial performance
occurred in Week 17, when the project recorded a Cost Variance of
approximately minus IDR 1.97 billion. According to the researchers, this
loss was largely driven by idle heavy equipment rental costs and uncoordinated
acceleration efforts implemented in the field.
Rescheduling Reduced the
Project Duration
To overcome these challenges, the
research team developed a comprehensive rescheduling strategy using
Microsoft Project. The revised plan included adding two excavator units,
introducing night-shift operations on critical activities, and changing several
sequential work relationships into overlapping tasks through a fast-tracking
approach.
The simulation produced
remarkable improvements. The total project duration decreased from 19 weeks
to 14 weeks, shifting the projected completion date from January 2026 to mid-November
2025.
Cost performance improved as
well. After rescheduling, the CPI ranged between 1.39 and 3.74,
while the SPI remained between 1.00 and 1.51 until physical
construction reached 100 percent completion in Week 14. These values indicate
that the project would not only progress faster than planned but also operate
more efficiently within the available budget.
Why These Findings Matter
The study offers practical
insights for infrastructure projects built in geographically challenging
environments. Rizka Aprilia and H. Muhammad Humaidi argue that integrating
Microsoft Project with the Earned Value Method provides contractors, consultants,
and government agencies with a comprehensive monitoring system that combines
schedule, physical progress, and financial performance into a single
decision-making framework.
The researchers emphasize that
early detection of schedule and cost deviations allows project managers to
prioritize critical activities, optimize heavy equipment utilization, and
implement corrective actions before delays escalate into substantial financial
losses.
For future road construction
projects, they recommend maintaining standby heavy equipment from the beginning
of construction and adopting EVM-based reporting as a standard monthly
monitoring system for public infrastructure projects.
Author Profiles
Rizka Aprilia is a civil
engineering researcher at Banjarmasin State Polytechnic (Politeknik Negeri
Banjarmasin), specializing in construction management, project scheduling,
and cost control for infrastructure development.
H. Muhammad Humaidi is a
lecturer and researcher at Banjarmasin State Polytechnic, with expertise
in civil engineering, project management, and construction performance
evaluation using the Earned Value Method. He also serves as the corresponding
author of this publication.
Research Source
Article Title:
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Authors: Rizka Aprilia
& H. Muhammad Humaidi
Affiliation: Banjarmasin
State Polytechnic (Politeknik Negeri Banjarmasin)
Journal: International
Journal of Integrative Research (IJIR), Vol. 4, No. 7, 2026, pp. 577–592
DOI:
10.59890/ijir.v4i7.227
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