The Technique of Value Engineering (VE) in Architecture

Value Engineering (VE) is a sequence of procedures aiming to meliorate the value of the final product by having a better management through the overall steps, always considering the cost. Value Engineering is an organizing tool with origins from the science of Project Management which had been used during the World War II by “General Electric Co” and nowadays it is an approach commonly used for planning building projects.

Most of the companies follow this technique in order to minimize the cost but not the basic function of the product. In the architectural field, the engineers are facing plenty of composite projects which have to meet the needs and requirements of their clients and also being in time and in budget. For this reason, the VE technique is preferable from large architectural offices because of the status of their clients. The bigger the project, the greater the need for examining continuously the budget through the design process.

In a nutshell, Value Engineering is an organized creative review of the needs and requirements of the client which are satisfied through the functions of the product, always underlining its quality and its low life cycle cost.

This tool can be applied at any step in a project, from the pre-workshop preparation to the post-workshop implementation. [1]

The Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE) was formed in 1959 as a professional society dedicated to the advancement of VE through a better understanding of the principles, methods, and concepts involved. [2] According to the Value Methodology Standard from the SAVE, value engineering can be described by the following 8-phases:

1. Preparation Phase
2. Information Phase
3. Function Analysis Phase
4. Creative Phase
5. Evaluation Phase
6. Development Phase
7. Presentation Phase
8. Implementation Phase

Big Idea

The idea was born at General Electric Co in the 1940s by the engineers Lawrence Miles, Jerry Leftow, and Harry Erlicher. The combination of the high demand of products with the shortage of raw materials, created the need for seeking alternative materials which will be in the same cost and function levels with the first ones. This process was named Value Engineering.

Nowadays, Value engineering is consisted by a multi-disciplined team which purpose is to identify and reduce unnecessary costs and poor performance, while maintaining product quality. Functional Analysis System Technique (FAST) diagrams illustrate the phases. The value engineering team has four to six members with complementary expertise in different disciplines. [3]

Application

The tool is supposed to be used by following the below phases.

Preparation Phase

understanding the project, first touch

Information Phase

gathering of data

Function Analysis Phase

analysis of the project, clarification of the purpose

Creative Phase

production of ideas which correspond the needs

Evaluation Phase

synthesizing the ideas

Development Phase

review and selection of the most suitable ideas

Presentation Phase

presentation to the clients

Implementation Phase

realization of the selected by the client’s ideas

Limitations

As everywhere, in this technique is easy to detect the limitations, which are man-made. Some of these are the following:

• Difficulties in the communication inside the multidisciplinary team
• Lack of motivation
• Lack of knowledge
• Persistence from stakeholders for even more minimum cost