Chapter: 2

2. Literature Review
England has continued to face serious issues in its construction sector, which include project
delays, cost overruns, lack of coordination and productivity. Statical facts show that in the
construction industry, productivity in the UK has not significantly increased in the last 50 years
as compared to other industries (Office for National Statistics, 2018; Farmer, 2016). As a
reaction, several keystone government-led programs have tried to revamp the industry. The
Egan Report (Rethinking construction, 1998) developed the following effects: it was imperative
to remove waste, implement client-based models of delivery, develop integrated teams as well
as focus on quality and workforce development (Egan, 1998). It was based on lean
manufacturing concepts which suggested that there should be tremendously higher outputs in
costs, time, predictability, defects, customer satisfaction, and safety productions. These
recommendations included demands of integrated processes, performance measurement in
terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and a culture change towards collaborative working
to boost the reliability of delivery and the association with clients (Constructing Excellence,
2009; Murray & Langford, 2003).
The Egan Report has its legacy. One of the most significant policy outcomes was the
Construction Strategy of the UK Government, 2011 according to which the use of fully
collaborative 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM) in state-procured construction projects
was supposed to become mandatory by 2016, which is directly linked to the Egan initiatives of
going digital and achieving integration (Cabinet Office, 2011; Bryde et al., 2013).
The following 18 years saw another effort, the Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP)
programme (Infrastructure and Projects Authority, 2017) to overcome the productivity deficit
that continues to plague the sector. The major goal of TIP was to save at least 15 billion every
year using off-site manufacturing, investment in the digital technology, and integration of
procurement and delivery models (IPA, 2017). It also facilitated multi-year investment planning,
value-based procurement and sector wide digital adoption to facilitate data-driven decision
making and improvement of asset performance across the whole life (KPMG, 2018).
These new efforts indicate a distinct change in government policy focus-one that has
increasingly been on the process (Egan), but in these cases is on system-wide digital and
productivity transformation (TIP) both aimed at the underlying drivers of inefficiencies and
fragmentation.
Against this policy background, implementation of project management software has come up
as a major facilitator in enhancing project controls and implementation. Because it is readily
available, inexpensive, and flexible to meet the needs of the construction team, Microsoft
Project has been implemented on many more construction projects to perform task scheduling,
resource assignments, critical path reviews, and earned value management (Kerzner, 2017;
Alaloul et al., 2019). Although such products as Primavera P6 cast a long shadow on the market
of large-scale infrastructure projects, it should be noted that Microsoft Project still takes a
considerable position on the small-to-medium project scene, especially in locations where cost-
effectiveness and integration versatility are a factor (Abubakar et al., 2014).
Nonetheless, even though government plans emphasize the digital revolution, the actual
position and researchable success of Microsoft Project as a device that promotes effectiveness,
delivery rates, and coordination within the construction industry in England are not thoroughly
researched, and it is a prominent area to be investigated empirically.
How It Is Adopted and Used in Construction
This is evident in various empirical works that show Microsoft Project (MS Project) to be
perhaps one of the most popular Project Management Software (PMS) applications in the
construction industry upon which other highly specialised platforms are available. To give one
such example, 47 percent of the 150 construction professionals in Kazakhstan surveyed largely
utilized MS Project during the process of scheduling and resource planning, which is
significantly more than the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) software (24 percent),
Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools (16 percent), and other PMS platforms (13 percent)
(Abisheva et al., 2022). The respondents attributed the ease in project planning, critical path
scheduling, and cooperation of teams, particularly at the initial stages of project development
to the facet of MS Project. In a larger perspective, the same patterns can be noticed in
international comparative studies. In a global survey of 14 countries, Primavera P6 was
identified as the prevailing PMS in large-scale infrastructure projects since it possesses an
advanced multi-project and cost-control capability, but Microsoft Project still has a market
share of ~25 percent-especially the small-to-medium-sized projects (SMEs) and the
organisations that set easier usability and cost-effectiveness as their priorities (Hossain et al.,
2019). The critical path analysis, the resource scheduling and the method of earned value
management (EVM) were the projects that have predominately been carried out using MS
Project in these situations (Aminbakhsh & Sonmez, 2013). The continued use of the MS Project
across a wide range of geographical locations and across organisations also indicates its breadth
of applicability especially to those companies with less resources or requirement of more
sophisticated, enterprise level PMS offerings.
2.1 Functional Uses of Microsoft Project in construction
Microsoft Project (MS Project) represents an ultimate set of functions that align with the
project management theories and meet the demand of construction professionals pertaining to
the planning, control, and monitoring.
2.1: Critical Path Analysis Resource Leveling
Theoretical Principles: The Critical Path Method (CPM) is an algorithm used to form the basis of
a schedule in determining the longest chain of dependent projects that have to be undertaken
(i.e., the zero-float activities), therefore, determining the shortest project possible. It ascertains
that managers follow the sequencing of tasks and handle the risk of schedule (Project
Management Institute, 2017; Carone, 2012) How to use in MS Project: Microsoft Project
automates CPM calculations and automatically provides resource leveling-that is, it pushes the
scheduled start and finish date of task with resources constrained by availability by altering the
start and finish date in order to address resource over-allocation (Desai, 2023) Construction
Case study: In one construction case study, in which the project is a construction of a three-
story building, MS Project helped in optimizing the project resources in details in terms of
leveling, demonstrating graphically using cost distribution graphs and on resource histograms.
The findings of the study were that MS Project improved productivity particularly in projects of
smaller scale or less complicated nature (Hamad, 2022)
2.2 Earned Value Management (EVM) Cost Estimating
EVM Theory: Earned Value Management (EVM) is a combination of scope, schedule and cost
with the project managers being able to implement performance measurement through
metrics that are Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV) and the Actual Cost (AC).
The methodology can help in identifying deviations in performances at an early stage, and more
accurate predictions (sources in Wikipedia frequently refer to PMI; Project Management
Institute, 2017)
MS Project Capabilities: MS Project has the capability to model costs by the rolling up of
resource rates and assignment costs into detailed task hierarchies.
It is also enabled in inserting baseline comparisons- essential in determination of cost and
schedule variances (Strasser, 2024).
Empirical Evidence: According to a construction-based research on earned value in the context
of project performance, it was stated that MS Project allows calculating CPI (Cost Performance
Index), SPI (Schedule Performance Index), BAC (Budget at Completion), and VAC (Variance at
Completion), which helps to track costs and schedule well (Narayana, 2019)
More widely, construction-related studies also point to the importance of Earned Value
Analysis in sending early performance warnings so that remedial measures can be taken to
reduce the impact on project performance through the comparison of EV, PV and AC (Research
in construction contexts).
2.3 Workload Planning / Work Scheduling Automation
A Case in Point: MS Project automates recalculations of schedules whenever there have been
rearrangements of task dependencies, times and resources appointments which saves lots of
time engaging in manual schedule recalculations. This results in better efficiency and likelihood
of reduction of human errors ([Link], 2024)
Team Coordination: MS Project enhances coordination among project stakeholders and eases
resource scheduling and reassignment by concentration in a central point of information-
intelligence distribution- improves clarity and accountability (Hamad, 2022)
2.4 Constraints and Problems of Microsoft Project in Constructing
Although powerful, MS Project has a number of weaknesses that are quite apparent concerning
the complexity of a modern construction project:
2.4.1 Usability and Limitation to the Domain
It is commonly explained that MS Project has been depicted as a powerful tool but not
necessarily an intuitive one to the construction professionals. As an example, as a part of the
critique of Celoxis, an industry commentary states that MS Project: Takes an intensive training
to understand dependencies, constraints and calendar logic. Reaches the occasional user
without contextual help, error guidance, and user friendly features. This may be frustrating to a
novice, and they usually use manual schedule generate tools that would bring clarity (Celoxis,
2025). Such deficiencies become even more obvious when it comes to specific to the
constructed workflows with features such as a daily log and Request for Information (RFI)
management or client portal all of which are unsupported by MS Project. A steep learning curve
and lack of mobile support are cited by the people as the actual adoption and usability hurdles,
at least in the field.
2.4.2 Inter-integration or optimization trouble
In order to offset the missing advanced features some researches and even practitioners are
relying on add on systems or even bespoke inter-systems with MS Project: Das O, et al. (2020)
surveyed optimization tool use (e.g. heuristic and mathematical programming techniques) that
are coupled with PMS tools such as MS Project. They discovered that these combinations
facilitate sustainable scheduling and optimal assigning of resources, but the division between
the optimization modules and the PMS causes considerable amounts of manual work in
updating and aligning schedules in the execution of a project, particularly taking into account
dynamic project settings (Dasović et al., 2020).
2.4.3 Scaleability, Flexibility and Algorithm constraints
Although project users can use MS Project to impart custom logic, through the embedded
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), often these ad-hoc solutions are cumbersome, inflexible and
proving more difficult to maintain as the project becomes more complex: A study that
compared the use of Genetic Algorithm (GA) based resource levelling solution to the native
heuristic of MS Project revealed that, in general, GA solutions produce better solutions and this
is more pronounced in larger or resource-constrained problems (Author et al., 2019). This is to
indicate the possible inadequacy of the built-in leveling of MS Project in multi-objective
situations which are complex in nature. VBA-based optimization is possible but brittle, error
prone, and usually constrained by the architecture of the application (especially excessive use
of user defined loops and macros). As an example, it might be possible to utilise GA in MS
Project as written in VBA, yet requires careful coding and it is not as polished as optimisation
tools designed specifically to do this (StackOverflow discussion, 2018).
2.4.4 GIS and Spatial visualization limitations
Spatial representation is very fruitful in construction scheduling--but MS Project does not come
geospatially enabled: Bansal and Pal (2008) point out that both MS Project and Primavera do
not imply the visualization of the spatial dimension, such as site map or three-dimensional plan.
Their GIS based technique adds scheduling information (either in excel or autoCAD derived
schedules) into ArcGIS, and allows improved spatial analysis of the progress on the
construction. Such spatialized perceptions of locations and scheduling capabilities are not
supported by the MS Project alone (Bansal & Pal, 2008).
2.5 Quality Academic Improvement and Integration
Various researchers have actively pursued solutions to make Microsoft Project (MS Project)
more useful in constructions by interfacing with optimization algorithms and other external
applications in an attempt to expand the functionality of the product beyond the normal
feature set. With respect to integration of optimization, Dasović et al. (2020) designed VBA-
based vaccination solutions connecting Genetic Algorithms (GA) and heuristic methodologies
with MS Project directly and allowing automatic exportation of optimized programmes to
minimize manual data reconciliation. In the same regard, Zhang and Ng (2022) applied the
MAWA system through VBA to solve time-cost trade-offs through Ant Colony System (ACS)
algorithm that is able to generate optimised schedules in MS Project and later exported to Excel
in order to examine its results. In the case of multi-objective optimization, Anagnostopoulos
and Koulinas (2022) implemented a selection of possible heuristical algorithms to the solution
of resource allocation and multi-project schedule - Simulated Annealing (SA), GA, ACS, Tabu
Search (TS) and GRASP-HH using VBA.
Tereso et al. (2014) have introduced the expansion of functionality in terms of a C# add-in that
gives the option to solve Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problems (RCPSP) to the
user using branch and bound (BB) and critical heuristic (CH) algorithms.
In an even more integrated workflow, Liu et al. (2015) integrated MS Project and MS Access
database with a BIM model (Revit) via the Revit API and provided a real time scheduling based
on 3D models and well structured resource data, which offered a more automated and
graphically enhanced work process.
The integration of external tools has proved useful as well; one potential application is linked to
Moselhi and Roofigari-Esfahan (2022), who integrated MS Project with MATLAB to run
TimeCost Tradeoffs Problems (TCTP), and transferred the critical activity data into spreadsheets
and computed the cost slopes with the help of MATLAB to create a series of the earnest
schedules, raising the deciphering standard as well as productivity of decision-making.

2.6. Contextualizing In UK Construction Strategy

Despite the fact that the application of Microsoft Project in the context of the England
construction industry in particular has not been the subject of direct empirical research yet, a
more general approach to digitalization initiated at the governmental level offers a clear reason
why it might be applicable in enhancing project delivery practices in the present-day
environment. One approach, promoted by the Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP)
programme based on the UK, led by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), promotes
the idea of a focus on the whole life in infrastructure planning, using digital tools, improved
integration of data, and newer methods of construction to achieve systematic productivity
increases in stroke management (IPA, 2017; IPA, 2023)
TIP focuses on collaboration across data and digital platforms, including those that interact
with BIM, digital twins, and real-time information systems, so that smarter decisions can be
made and more efficiently performed across the asset lifecycle (IPA, 2023)
Despite this not being stated in its name, because it fits the agenda of creating systematic
digital planning tools presented in TIP as well as the ability to schedule and manage resources,
Microsoft Project serves as a logical candidate to support such strategic goals in practices of UK
construction.
2.7. Research Gaps & Synthesis
Highlights of the Points:
Use: Microsoft Project (MS Project) is common in scheduling and control worldwide, but larger,
more complex construction ventures are likely to be dominated by tools such as Primavera
Advantages: Operational automation in the schedule, the critical path analysis, the resource
allocation and the cost management are enhanced with the MS Project capabilities, which
include the task automation and integration with other Microsoft tools
Limitations: It has gaps in certain domains, that is, it does not have such features as RFIs, daily
logging, and lending collaborative portals; also, it has mobile usability and steep learning curve
Academic Solutions: More powerful optimization tools (such as GA, ACS, creation of VBA
macros, BIM-Access systems) can be integrated with MS Project, but these extensions have
mainly been subjected to local and preference-based, small-scale experimentation.
UK Strategy: Government strategies in the UK such as Transforming Infrastructure Performance
(TIP) to foster the use of digital and stimulating productivity growth do not show a direct link to
the use of MS Project, in particular Possible Gaps of Your Case Study
Empirical and country (England) based evidence of the contribution made by the MS Project in
construction efficiency and project success.
Real world comparisons of the context of MS Project against such other tools as BIM or
Primavera in construction projects in the UK.
Quantitative valuation that extracts the efficiency gains particular to MS Project use.
The research on user experience takes samples of British construction professionals in order to
identify adoption barriers in the realm of usability, training, working process, and field
applications.
2.8 Summary
The literature review provides the background of the case study where the strengths and
weaknesses of MS Project are outlined in the context of the global construction industry. It is
also backed by international evidence to play a role in the automation of schedules, resource
co-ordination and cost control. In spite of this, there are still key knowledge gaps that require
clarification- particularly on its quantifiable effects, user-friendliness and its potential to
integrate into the environment of the construction industry in England. These gaps provide an
appropriate location to embed your research with an empirical calculation; the methodology
may be a practitioner survey, structured interviewing, time-and-motion measurement, or
quantitative performance measurement. Concentrating on the implications of the use of MS
Project to the efficiency of a project, risks management, and success rate within the
construction industry in England, your study would be able to enlighten both scholarly thought
and offer practical insights. Such a thorough research in this area may inform how digital
transformation policies can be complemented by more industry-wide policies such as TIP or
BIM requirements, and how an optimized, tools-appropriate digitalization may be pursued.