Value Management
Value management is a disciplined procedure directed towards the achievement of required function for minimum cost without detriment to quality, reliability, performance or delivery. Oversees the procedure may be known as value engineering.
The procedure is conducted through a workshop or series of workshops involving the client, the design team and other relevant stakeholders (where appropriate). The workshop takes the participants through a structured problem solving agenda intended to find creative solutions to the client's requirements. Experience has shown that the value management procedure is extremely useful as a means of reviewing a design proposal. However, it has been found that the decisions that have the greatest impact on cost are made at the outset of the project when strategic decisions regarding the purpose and required functions of the project are made. Current practice with value management is therefore to break it into a two stage process—strategic value management and design value management.
- Strategic Value Management
Strategic value management is used to review the strategic intent of the project. It is most commonly conducted during the pre brief stage. It is used to clarify the strategic intent of the project and the functional requirements of the project. The use of a value management workshop enables matters such as the project priorities and economic restraints to be fully examined and alternative solutions considered. Whilst cost savings cannot be clearly defined at this stage—as the project itself is not clearly defined—experience suggests that conducting value management at this stage can have a very
significant impact on project cost. - Design Value Management
Design value management is used to review design proposals. During the workshop consideration is given to whether all the client's requirements are being fulfilled, whether additional value can be added to the project and whether cost savings are possible without detriment to quality, reliability, performance or delivery. Typically, cost savings achieved at a design value management workshop are in the order of 10%.