Value engineering (VE) is a systematic analysis of the functions of various components and materials to lower the cost of goods, products and services with a tolerable loss of performance or functionality. Value, as defined, is the ratio of function to

cost In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which ...

. Value can therefore be manipulated by either improving the function or reducing the

. It is a primary tenet of value engineering that basic functions be preserved and not be reduced as a consequence of pursuing value improvements. The term "value management" is sometimes used as a synonym of "value engineering", and both promote the planning and delivery of projects with improved performance The reasoning behind value engineering is as follows: if marketers expect a product to become practically or stylistically obsolete within a specific length of time, they can design it to only last for that specific lifetime. The products could be built with higher-grade components, but with value engineering they are not because this would impose an unnecessary cost on the manufacturer, and to a limited extent also an increased cost on the purchaser. Value engineering will reduce these costs. A company will typically use the least expensive components that satisfy the product's lifetime projections at a risk of product and company reputation. Due to the very short life spans, however, which is often a result of this "value engineering technique",

planned obsolescence In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that ...

has become associated with product deterioration and inferior quality.

Vance Packard Vance Oakley Packard (May 22, 1914 – December 12, 1996) was an American journalist and social critic. He was the author of several books, including ''The Hidden Persuaders'' and ''The Naked Society''. He was a critic of consumerism. Early life ...

once claimed this practice gave engineering as a whole a bad name, as it directed creative engineering energies toward short-term market ends. Philosophers such as

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...

and

Jacque Fresco Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 – May 18, 2017) was an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design. Fresco wrote and lectured his views on sustai ...

have also criticized the economic and societal implications of this model.

History

Value engineering began at

General Electric Co. General Electric Company (GE) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York (state), New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Because of the war, there were shortages of skilled labour, raw materials, and component parts.

Lawrence Miles Lawrence Miles (born 15 March 1972 in Middlesex) is a science fiction author known for his work on original ''Doctor Who'' novels (for both the Virgin New Adventures and BBC Books series) and the subsequent spin-off Faction Paradox. He is also ...

, Jerry Leftow, and Harry Erlicher at G.E. looked for acceptable substitutes. They noticed that these substitutions often reduced costs, improved the product, or both. What started out as an accident of necessity was turned into a systematic process. They called their technique "value analysis" or "value control".Sharma, A. and Belokar, R. M.
Achieving Success through Value Engineering: A Case Study
Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2012 Vol II, accessed 27 December 2021 The U S Navy's

Bureau of Ships The United States Navy's Bureau of Ships (BuShips) was established by Congress on 20 June 1940, by a law which consolidated the functions of the Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) and the Bureau of Engineering (BuEng). The new bureau was to ...

established a formal program of value engineering, overseen by Miles and Raymond Fountain, also from G.E., in 1957. Since the 1970's the US Government's

General Accounting Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...

(GAO) has recognised the benefit of value engineering. In a 1992 statement by L. Nye Stevens, Director of Government Business Operations Issues within the GAO, referred to "considerable work" done by the GAO on value engineering and the office's recommendation that VE should be adopted by "all federal construction agencies".Stevens, L. N. (1992)
Value Engineering: Usefulness Well Established When Applied Appropriately
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security of the Committee on Government Operations of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, 23 June 1992, accessed 24 August 2021 Dr. Paul Collopy, UAH Professor, ISEEM Department, has recommended an improvement to value engineering known as Value-Driven Design.

Description

Value engineering is sometimes taught within the

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex process (engineering), processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, kno ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

body of knowledge as a technique in which the value of a system’s outputs is superficially optimized by distorting a mix of performance (function) and costs. It is based on an analysis investigating systems, equipment, facilities, services, and supplies for providing necessary functions at superficial low life cycle cost while meeting the misunderstood requirement targets in performance, reliability, quality, and safety. In most cases this practice identifies and removes necessary functions of value expenditures, thereby decreasing the capabilities of the manufacturer and/or their customers. What this practice disregards in providing necessary functions of value are expenditures such as equipment maintenance and relationships between employee, equipment, and materials. For example, a machinist is unable to complete their quota because the drill press is temporarily inoperable due to lack of maintenance and the material handler is not doing their daily checklist, tally, log, invoice, and accounting of maintenance and materials each machinist needs to maintain the required productivity and adherence to section 4306. VE follows a structured thought process that is based exclusively on "function", i.e. what something "does", not what it "is". For example, a

screwdriver A screwdriver is a tool, manual or powered, used for turning screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft, ending in a tip the user puts into the screw head before turning the handle. This form of the screwdriver has been repla ...

that is being used to stir a can of paint has a "function" of mixing the contents of a paint can and not the original connotation of securing a screw into a screw-hole. In value engineering "functions" are always described in a two word abridgment consisting of an active verb and measurable noun (what is being done – the verb – and what it is being done to – the noun) and to do so in the most non-descriptive way possible. In the screwdriver and can of paint example, the most basic function would be "blend liquid" which is less descriptive than "stir paint" which can be seen to limit the action (by stirring) and to limit the application (only considers paint). Value engineering uses rational logic (a unique "how" - "why" questioning technique) and an irrational analysis of function to identify relationships that increase value. It is considered a quantitative method similar to the scientific method, which focuses on hypothesis-conclusion approaches to test relationships, and operations research, which uses model building to identify predictive relationships.

Legal terminology

In the United States, value engineering is specifically mandated for federal agencies by section 4306 of the

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, which amended the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act (41 U.S.C. 401 et seq.): :“Each

executive agency An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Nort ...

shall establish and maintain cost-effective value engineering procedures and processes." :"As used in this section, the term ‘value engineering’ means an analysis of the functions of a program, project, system, product, item of equipment, building, facility, service, or supply of an executive agency, performed by qualified agency or contractor personnel, directed at improving performance, reliability, quality, safety, and life cycle costs." An earlier bill, HR 281, the "Systematic Approach for Value Engineering Act" was proposed in 1990, which would have mandated the use of VE in major federally-sponsored construction, design or IT system contracts. This bill identified the objective of a value engineering review as "reducing all costs (including initial and long-term costs) and improving quality, performance, productivity, efficiency, promptness, reliability, maintainability, and aesthetics". In the United Kingdom, the lawfulness of undertaking value engineering discussions with a supplier in advance of contract award is one of the issues which has been highlighted during the

inquiry An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ...

into the

Grenfell Tower fire On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escapin ...

of 2017.

Professional association

The Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE) was established in 1959. Since 1996 it has been known as SAVE International.SAVE International
About SAVE International
accessed 6 August 2021

References

External links

Lawrence D. Miles Value FoundationSAVE International
- American Value engineering society

- Many links regarding VE organizations and publications
The Canadian Society of Value Analysis
- Value Engineering in Canada

American Institute of Architects - AIA
The Institute of Value Management, UKThe APTE method
{{Authority control Industrial engineering Design for X Cost engineering