A Proposed UAV-BIM-Integrated Earned Value Management Framework with a Climate-Adjusted Schedule Performance Index for High-Rise Construction Project Control: A Conceptual Framework and Illustrative Demonstration

Abstract

Earned Value Management (EVM) is the dominant method for integrated cost and schedule control in construction, yet its Schedule Performance Index (SPI) does not distinguish delay caused by contractor inefficiency from delay caused by unavoidable climate hazards such as monsoon rainfall or cyclones. In climate-vulnerable, monsoon-affected markets, this conflation risks misrepresenting project performance and weakening EVM-based decision-making. This paper proposes a UAV–BIM-integrated EVM framework whose central contribution is a composite metric, the Integrated Digital Construction Index (IDCI), intended to combine a Climate-Adjusted Schedule Performance Index (CASPI), a Climate-Adjusted Cost Performance Index (CACPI), a UAV-BIM Verification Confidence score (UBVC), and a Digital Maturity Score (DMS) into one dashboard-ready decision metric. The framework specifies how Earned Value could be derived bottom-up from UAV-photogrammetric progress reconciled against a cost-loaded Building Information Model rather than subjective percentage-complete estimates, and defines a companion Climate Delay Ratio (CDR) that quantifies the schedule baseline share falling within climate-hazard periods. Following a design-science research approach, the framework is derived analytically from earned value, earned schedule, and UAV–BIM progress-monitoring theory, and is illustrated - not empirically validated - through a fully hypothetical 18-month high-rise case built on a synthetic dataset; no real project, UAV, or cost-accounting data are used. All reported figures demonstrate only the mathematical behavior of the proposed indices under assumptions chosen by the author, not their real-world accuracy. In the illustrative case, conventional SPI falls to 0.66 during a simulated cyclone month while CASPI remains at 0.89, and IDCI rises from 0.68 to 0.92 as UAV-BIM verification coverage and framework maturity increase in the synthetic scenario. The paper's contribution is conceptual and methodological a reusable metric set, an explicit and reproducible computational procedure, a dashboard architecture, and a phased empirical validation agenda rather than a demonstrated improvement in project-control outcomes, which remains to be established on real, instrumented projects.