Value Engineering’s History in Construction

Source: The American Institute of Architects, Using Active Value Engineering for Quality Management

Value Engineering within construction was pioneered by Mr. Alphonse Dell’Isola in the 1960s. He focused on the same goals as Miles and Erlicher in developing a value analysis process for construction. The Federal Government Construction Value Engineering Law (Public Law 104-106) can be credited to Mr. Dell’Isola. During his career, he conducted more than 1,000 VE workshops for various organizations that resulted in savings of $2.5 billion.

Dell’Isola identifies “improving project value” as the main objective of VE. In addition to improving project value, he states that the project team should utilize VE to overcome poor project value and quality, including,

1) Lack of shared project information—insufficient data on the function of stakeholder requirements. This includes building materials and processes.
2) Lack of ideas, or failure to develop alternate solutions and then making choices based on economics and performance.
3) Temporary circumstances—urgent delivery, design, or schedule circumstances can force decisions that, while quick, are often incomplete without regard to value.
4) Honest but wrong beliefs—decisions based on what is believed to be correct rather than on facts.
5) Habits and attitudes –response to doing the same thing, the same way, under the same circumstances.
6) Changes in stakeholder requirements—new requirements may cause costs to increase without awareness.
7) Lack of communication and coordination—issues of communication and coordination have been determined to be reasons for unnecessary costs.
8) Outdated standards and specifications—VE helps isolate and focus new technologies and standards in areas where high costs with poor value may incur based on wrong or legacy information. Active VE can provide a framework for a rigorous review of project specifications (Dell’Isola, 1997).

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