The Technique of Value Engineering (VE) in Architecture

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. Value Engineering, also known as VE, is a sequence of procedures aiming to meliorate the value of the final product -in this case, the value of the building construction- by having a better management through the overall steps, always considering the cost.

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 is, the greater the need is for examining continuously the budget through the design process.