The Value Management Strategy Construction Essay

According to Merna in (Smith, 2002) the term Value Management (VM) tend to be a blanket term that include many value techniques such as Value Planning (VP) , Value Engineering (VE) and Value Analysis (VA), therefore the definition of VM may vary from country to country and from industry to an other, the Institute of Value Management (IVM, 2010) takes Value Management as the tools and techniques concerned with improving and sustaining a desirable balance between the wants and needs of stakeholders and the resources needed to satisfy them. It’s the process in which the functional benefits of the project are explicated and appraised consistent with the value system determined by the client (Kelly et al., 2004). British Standard define VM as the management style that can motivate people, develops skills and promote innovation (BSI., 2000) It is the relationship between the satisfaction of needs and the resources required in achieving that satisfaction (Venkataraman and Pinto, 2008). CIRIA defines VM as the structure approach that help defining the clients value requirements and ensure the delivery of that value through the design and construction process (Connaughton and Green, 1996), the institution of civil engineers (ICE) definition of VM take it as a set of techniques and tools to enhance the project (ICE., 1996) while (BRE, 2010) defines Value engineering (VE) as a pro-active, creative, team approach to problem-solving in construction projects to provide the best value for money. Australian based Department of Human Service (DHS) defines VM as the systematic review of the essential functions or performance of a capital project to ensure that best value for money is achieved. (Chen et al., 2009) considered Value Engineering (VE) as the organized application that uses both technical and non-technical knowledge and skills to eliminate unnecessary cost in the project.

VM derives its power from being a team based, process-driven methodology and has been dominated by the north American thinking since its early days (Male et al., 2007) where Americans generally refer to the technique as Value Methodology (VM) which emerged in 1940s as a response to increasing pressure to gain more with fewer resources (Wilson, 2005). The origin of first Value Management application can be traced back to Miles a Purchasing engineer with General Electric who developed the first Value Analysis (VA) plan and the Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE), which was founded in Washington, DC, in 1959 is the premier international society devoted to the advancement and promotion of the value methodology (Alalshikh and Male, 2009).(SAVE, 2007) defined the value methodology as the systematic process used by a multidisciplinary team to improve the value of a project through the analysis of its functions. The application of value management as a formal technique will largely depend on the value of a particular project and the level of risk involved Value management usually incorporates a series of workshops, interviews and reviews, through which the project requirements are evaluated against the means of achieving them. There are many reasons to use VM in projects one of them is the poor definition of projects at early stage as it is crucial to ensure the project success this poor definition normally comes from the shortage of time given out at that stage, therefore the stakeholders are required to define the project scope and need at early stage (Smith, 2002). In addition to that there are always elements in the project with poor value and using VM can help remove those elements.

This paper will look to the VM strategy for Old Cross Community Fitness Centre (OCCFC) through evaluating and appraising the group work, the paper first define VM and traced back its origin, then moves into giving short brief about the project which is the subject of the study. Then the paper shows the steps taking in deciding the best VM study style, after that the paper moved into the generic processes of VM from the Orientation and Diagnosis phase, the Workshop phase and the implementation phase by detailing each one of the components and concentrated in workshop phase as that stage represents the team work. The environment or the context of study, the participants and why they are needed and the inputs and delivery of the study are covered and the paper concluded by the best way of implementing the study outcomes.

The critical appraisal for the VM strategy adopted by the team will look at the different processes of VM study and how the team dealt with it and compare the group work with the best practise and published literature in the field, giving rationale and justify the group trends, highlights the group major disagreement with the VM best practise and define strength and weaknesses behind their choices.

According to (Male et al., 1998) the VM study style represent method and approaches those need to be used during the VM workshop, it is the outcome of the stage in the project life cycle at which VM study is carried out and to do so the identification of the project current intervention point is needed. (Connaughton and Green, 1996) identified four VM/VE (Value Engineering) intervention stages as follows: concept, feasibility, scheme design and detail design while Male et al. (1998), stated that there is a generally held consensus that the following six opportunities help to achieve the highest effect on any project during a VM study’s lifecycle: the pre-brief, briefing, concept design, Charette (Brief Review Workshop), detail design, and operational study (during the construction phase).

In this phase of the study the Value Manager should be appointed and normally the Value Manager will held meeting with the clients in order to define objectives of Value Study, gain commitment from stakeholders and agree a bout how the value study programme should be implemented. Meeting with project sponsors and reviewing of documents is likely to happen at this stage along with conducting interviews with relevant stakeholders (Male and Kelly, 2004), selection of the participants in the value study and gathering of information is a crucial part in the this phase (Abidin and Pasquire, 2007). The structure of the value problems in details and the discussion of possible solution along with the agenda for the workshop phase are important parts in this phase and may also include how the workshop should be implemented (Male and Kelly, 2004). In this phase the team decided that more information is needed (documents, contracts, organisation, structure, client requirements, scope and more interviews and reviews) the group also discovered the need to interrogate the project to align with strategic objectives and the understanding of the organization structure. In order to succeed it is important to know where is the project in relation to life cycle, other VM challenges/problems that are not stated need to be highlighted. All these requirements are essential in this part of the phase (the orientation).on the other hand the diagnosis also has its requirements, from the location of the site and whether it is suitable for such kind of projects, to the political factors surrounding the project without neglecting the effect of fund diversion and how the facility is going to be used. For this phase the group assumed that the investment and the brief have been sorted and duration of 15-20 days has been assigned to this phase to allow time for conducting more interviews with stakeholders and cost consultant in particular

The team can be either external or existing team; the use of external team is not beneficial as conflict may arise between existing design team and external team, in addition to that the using of existing team can help in cost reduction, better development of ideas due to experience within the project, open communication and increased in implementation (Male et al., 1998). Building Research Establishment (BRE) stated that the team must represent relevant stakeholders, internal or external facilitator while. The group work choose a team that represent Newton council key members, cost consultant, architect, quantity surveyor, structural engineer, electro-mechanical engineer, relevant stakeholders and two team leaders (facilitators). That selection generally match with (Alalshikh and Male, 2009) as they composited the team in this stage with the Client representatives, end user , design team and project management team. (Male et al., 1998) mentioned five approach of VM study depends on the team composition and the team selected by the group tends to match his VM3 approach, where the personnel are the study facilitator and client representatives together with the project design team The benefits of VM have found to be most effective when an independent facilitator of the consultant/contractor team is appointed (DHS, 2010) . The group work did not mention whether those facilitators are independent or not. (ICE) suggest the team must include all relevant disciplines, have authorised decision maker and be led by value manager without mentioning the size of the team, that explain why Newton Council need to be represented as they are the decision makers.

According to (Hoekstra, 2006) most owners lean towards a small 5 to 7 member VE team; one person per discipline, with no duplication, the group trend may be compatible with Hoekstra as the team represents 5 different disciplines if stakeholders , Newton council members and facilitators of the study excluded, Hoekstra also mentioned that the team may include operations, management, ITS, safety, public information, environmental and maintenance disciplines to ensure the coverage of all project aspects. Its clearly noticed that the group work tends to ignore those disciplines although in the size of the team they mentioned that it may reach 16 with variation during the study process without clear identification of the additional members and whether any considerations for other disciplines are taken into account or just that additional proportion of the size was completely assigned to the stakeholders and council members. CIRIA on the other hand recommend the use of value manager who may be either from external organization or in-house (Connaughton and Green, 1996). Again the group did not mention that and whether the two facilitators are part of the consultant/contractor team or not.

One important part in the team dynamics is the facilitator and its role during study, according to (Kaufman, 2006) facilitation is the vehicle that guide the VM discipline into a viable process and there are many different type of facilitation, normally the VM facilitator involved before the project begins , being a part of deciding the discipline required in the VM team and determining the size of the team therefore the facilitator need to be well equipped with although the group has motioned the need for two facilitators in their study, they did not mention at which stage these facilitator have been brought into the project and that has a crucial impact in the kind of facilitation to be followed during the study,

According to (SAVE, 2007) many factors govern the duration needed to execute the Job Plan in a value study: the size and complexity of the project, the stage of project development, the estimated cost of the project while the typical duration for the Workshop Stage is five-days, which does not include the Pre-Workshop ( orientation & diagnosis) and Post-Workshop phase (implementation), (Hunter and Kelly, 2007) stated that there is a difference between study duration on the US and UK as only 1 day is given for the workshop duration in UK while its between 3-5 days in the US which is more compatible with the SAVE guidance in workshop. The group work assigned 2 days to complete the workshop phase which is between the UK & the US practise in regard to the duration of the workshop