Value engineering for performance improvement of sustainable construction project

Abstract

The technology of value engineering (VE) can be used to provide project owners with the required optimum value that is characterized by the project being delivered at the lowest cost and at a greater level of performance and quality. Providing this value can be challenging or near impossible at certain instances that could eventually impair some basic and important principles of VE that are key in arriving at the required goals of a project. This paper assessed the available conventional VE standard(s) with the aim of improving its ability to provide the best value to project owners especially in sustainability or green building projects. A critical review of the available VE tools and their uses in construction projects led to a discovery that project owners always emphasized reducing the cost of projects at the initial stages and sometimes during the whole life cycle of projects. This was identified as a limiting characteristic of the conventional VE that could hinder the project and VE team from performing VE exercises that meet the value requirements of projects. Performance worth (PW) VE approach was used to address this limitation in the function identification and analysis phase of the VE methodology. Construction industry VE practitioners were provided with a presentation and then surveyed about the conventional VE and PW approaches, and their feedback used to validate the PW idea relative to sustainable design and construction. The results of data analysis showed that PW was better than conventional VE approach and thus, it was concluded that its inclusion in the VE job plan would benefit project owners by providing better value or improved project outcomes.