Value engineering

About: Value engineering is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1231 publications have been published within this topic receiving 10882 citations. The topic is also known as: VE.

An Empirical Study on the Dimensions of Consumer Perceived Value in Green Hotels

Abstract: Consumer perceived value has become increasingly important for hotel marketers and operators due to the highly competitive environment. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: (1)What dimensions do consumer perceived value involve in hotel context? (2)What's the relationship between these dimensions? A total of 202 samples were analysed with exploratory factor analysis(EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). SPSS 18 and AMOS 17 were used as data analysis tools. Findings indicate that consumer perceived value comprise of functional value(performance/quality), functional value(price/value for money), social value, emotional value, epistemic value dimensions, and correlations between these value dimensions are tested. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in the end.

Complex healthcare facility management and lean construction.

Abstract: "Health care projects are very complex, and extensive planning is required to deliver them. Hundreds of participants, thousands of products and systems, and tens of thousands of decisions must be orchestrated on the path to final completion" (Burgun, Sprague, Stein, & Atkins, 2008, p.119). Healthcare construction may create conditions that are dangerous to a hospital's patients, staff , and visitors; therefore, it is essential to include in the process provisions for infection control; risk assessment; life safety; protection of occupants during construction (including planned or unplanned outages, movement of debris, traffic flow, cleanup, and so forth); plans for disruption of services; measures to be taken to train hospital staff , employees, visitors, and construction personnel; and commissioning processes. Still, this list represents just a few of the factors that must be considered while constructing, expanding, renovating, or restoring a healthcare facility.In general, the management team of any construction project should pay careful attention to items such as construction contracting, project management, value engineering, construction methods, project controls, scheduling and estimating, workforce supervision, construction equipment, construction safety, technology, and commissioning. However, because healthcare construction deals with unique and very complicated structures and systems (e.g., nuclear, electromagnetic, gases, radiation, chemical, and concentrated gases), these items assume higher levels of importance and criticality for the success of a project.Owners of new healthcare facilities are very conscious of the three items that dominate project delivery components: cost, time, and quality. In addition, they are aware that healthcare technology and processes are evolving at an ever-increasing speed. Therefore, they require flexibility and tend to postpone final Program of Requirements decision making to the last minute to avoid chaotic changes to the program (Ward, Liker, Cristiano, & Sobek, 1996). As a result, once a decision is made, there is an incentive to bring the project to successful completion as soon as possible at the lowest cost with the best quality and technology available. However, these owners are quickly coming to the realization that any attempt to drive down costs and time and also increase quality is futile, because it frequently results in more costly projects. A traditional construction project delivery dictum states that any two of these items can be achieved, but not all three (Dinsmore & Cooke-Davies, 2005).Recently, healthcare owners have begun teaming up with designers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and vendors (stakeholders in the supply chain) who provide Lean construction project delivery services, and they have found that by focusing on minimizing the waste on a project, they can achieve all three: reduced upfront cost, reduced project delivery time, and increased quality (Koskela, Howell, Ballard, & Tommelein, 2002). The waste at hand is not only material and information waste (caused by conflicts, errors, and omissions detected with the use of building information modeling, nth-Dimension computer- assisted design, and computerized models), but also waste from planned weekly activities that do not occur for various reasons (e.g., "Will try," "Will do my best," problems with other projects, conflict with other trades). Studies have shown that in the United States a typical project has an average plan percent complete (PPC) of approximately 54%, which is very good compared with other countries (Cain, 2004). What this means is that in any given project construction week, approximately 50% of the activities planned are carried out correctly and under strict time limits. Lean construction projects have been able to achieve an average of 80% PPC (Abdelhamid, El-Gafy, & Salem, 2008). The difference between 54% and 80% PPC is attributable to all kinds of direct/indirect, hidden/obvious, excused/ not excused, evitable/inevitable waste. …

Integrating Value Engineering and Context-Sensitive Solutions: The St. Clair Avenue West Transit Improvements Project

Abstract: The designers of transportation infrastructures are increasingly using the term "context-sensitive design" (CSD) or the broader term "context-sensitive solutions" (CSSs) to refer to a design process that strives to be more cognizant of its surrounding environment. Transportation infrastructures, especially in urban environments, are part of a much larger urban ecology that consists of a complex set of natural and human-made systems. As such, design guidelines that solely address engineering and safety considerations have proved themselves incapable of delivering street designs that respond to the functional requirements of the multitude of stakeholders within urban environments. Analysis of these requirements is a necessary first step for any successful CSD-CSS. In this regard, value engineering has been identified as a successful tool for product functional analysis. Several phases of value engineering overlap with the guiding principles of CSD-CSS. As such, this paper presents a value engineering framew...

Impact of cost constraints on aesthetic ranking following Target Value Design exercises

Abstract: PURPOSE: Target Value Design (TVD) is a project delivery subset that shares methodologies with Target Costing and Value Engineering, but is performed within the context of lean construction. TVD has been shown to generate first cost savings of approximately 20% on case study projects. A concern voiced by some architects, however, is that TVD may produce aesthetically inferior designs. Addressing this concern, we explore whether there is a relationship between cost and aesthetics.

Economic Value of Building Faster

Abstract: Owners, developers, and engineers are often challenged with determining the value of accelerating the construction of a project. There is a cost for accelerating the construction of a project to reduce the time required to transfer a facility into the operational phase. Determining the cost of acceleration is a difficult challenge with the limited information typically available early in the project development phase. Many unknowns exist (e.g., future revenue, costs, etc.) and the owner, developer, or engineer often make best guesses to justify if building faster is worthwhile. A simple methodology is needed to assess the value of building faster. This paper derives a set of equations that will allow owners, developers, and/or engineers to estimate the percent increase of the baseline project costs to reduce the time to completion of a construction project. The equations were derived such that variables that are easily known or can easily and reliably be determined are required. After the value of accelerating a project is determined (as a percentage of the original baseline budget), owner, developers, and/or engineers can use this information to determine if a project should be accelerated.