Value Engineering

It's almost a guarantee that any project that goes out to bid will come back more expensive than initially anticipated. When this happens, the general question becomes, ‘how can we make this happen for less money’... this is where value engineering comes in.

Value Engineering (VE) or Value Analysis

Value Engineering: The review process of proposed systems and materials to explore less expensive options to achieve a similar result.

• Also involves seeing if a product of higher quality is available for the same cost. While this isn’t exactly value engineering, it does give you more quality for the same amount.
• Best applied during the schematic design and design development phases to have the best impact on a project. Once the project is in CDs, it is typically a large cost to make changes.
• Design development refines the size, configuration, and exact design of the project, including materials, structure and building systems. The architect therefore, in a better position to assign costs to the various components of the site and building and compare these with the original project budget at this time than during the programming phase.

Refining A Budget

In general, there are three methods (approaches) for refining a project budget.

1. Parameter Method

Parameter Costs (Engineering Analysis)

This method bases the unit cost of each trade on the physical parameter of the building.

• Example: Structural steel will be evaluated on “gross area supported”
• Example: Acoustical ceilings will be evaluated on “net finished area”