CHAPTER 3:
Take Steps to Stretch Value Within Your Engineering Budget
With construction funds being limited for so many municipalities, designing projects in a way that stretches value within their engineering budgets as effectively as possible is critical.
However, it’s far more common for projects to exceed their budgets because they move too quickly from design to construction without addressing clear opportunities to save.
By securing engineering and construction partner involvement earlier in the design process, a municipality may find it can cut out project excess without sacrificing quality in its results.
Value engineering is a key concept for reducing upfront project costs.
Inviting an experienced construction engineer to the design table is an excellent way to identify opportunities to reduce project costs early on.
The true value of value engineering
Value engineering is a key concept for reducing upfront project costs. While value engineering has gained a reputation as a way to cut costs by reducing project quality, effective value engineering is actually a systematic process for ensuring that a project design balances all project needs to function safely, reliably and at the lowest possible cost. When done right, this design analysis process might lead to recommendations for improving both the value and quality of a project. It can also identify strategies to reduce the time needed to complete the project.
Value engineering can take many avenues. Among them, this process might identify alternative materials or design solutions that strengthen the project value over the course of its life cycle. Value engineering may find that the expenditure for a specific approach far outweighs the advantages. The key is to dig into the value of each design element to understand how it impacts constructability and long-term operation.
This systematic review of your project concept and design is best conducted by a multi-disciplined team of professionals not involved with the project. Larger government agencies might rely on a team of certified experts to provide this analysis for complex projects. Some engineers may also provide elements of value engineering in their constructability review process.
Prepare a constructability review
Inviting an experienced construction engineer to the design table is an excellent way to identify opportunities to reduce project costs early on. A constructability review performed during the design phase by a construction professional can ensure that the project design is buildable as is. This will reduce the potential for costly rework performed in the field.
The value of this approach comes from the fact that a construction engineer tends to view design plans from a different perspective than a designer. The design team must take a broad view of a project, focusing on the overall form and function. The construction engineer, on the other hand, is able to focus solely on the nuts and bolts of how to bring the project to fruition.
During a constructability review, your engineer partner is likely to check material quantities, confirm that there’s adequate space to develop a work zone, identify potential impacts to the construction schedule, and search for opportunities to optimize phasing. An experienced construction engineer can take your design and break it down to find slight modifications that can make the project easier and more cost-effective to build.
Through this review, you may also identify areas where planning wasn’t fully fleshed out or quantity errors were made. By identifying those potential problems early on, it becomes easier to develop cost-effective solutions to mitigate them.
