Integral value engineering in design

Construction industry clients demand certainty in project cost, quality and time. The inability of traditionally composed design teams to consistently deliver this suggests that their expertise is sometimes inadequate. As clients become more dynamic in the next millennium, they are likely to demand greater certainty when construction projects are implemented to support frequent revisions in their short term function. By establishing a collaborative working framework it is proposed that supply chains can be better managed to identify and design out potential problems using integrated, collaborative design processes. This proposal is being investigated by the Integrated Collaborative Design (ICD) research project, a collaboration of AMEC Construction, Loughborough University and eleven supply organisations, supported by the EPSRC and DETR through the IDAC Link programme. Focusing on one component of the ICD project, this paper reviews existing, reactive, value engineering methods and by identifying their inadequacies establishes the need for an integrated approach. A value management context is described which integrates value engineering into continuous design processes. The paper discusses the opportunities for utilising supplier design expertise by modelling design process information flows. It also identifies potential cultural barriers to the use of design processes incorporating integral value engineering techniques and describes the linkage to other ICD components that are addressing these issues.