Value engineering methodology to improve building sustainability outcomes

Optimum cost, performance and quality are the main drivers in building construction. Increasing and changing requirements of building owners have motivated significant quests for methods to improve the value of sustainable buildings. Methods that have been developed so far such as total quality management, quality function deployment or management by objective have not comprehensively addressed building sustainability outcomes. In fact, there is no value-focused procedure available to steer sustainable building construction. As a result, owners are not provided with adequate value for their buildings. Value engineering is a potential tool to achieve this goal. Therefore, the research aim was to develop value engineering methodology that can be used to improve building sustainability outcomes. The objectives were to develop a new value engineering model and to evaluate the new method with a case study building and expert opinions. The value engineering methods investigated involved conducting value analysis of building systems using conventional value engineering process, i.e., the value analysis standard E1699-10 as the baseline, and the alternative value engineering methods such as performance worth in the function analysis phase, neuro-linguistic programming in the creativity phase, and choosing by advantages in the evaluation phase. The methods were combined and investigated. It was hypothesized that the alternative value engineering methods would improve building sustainability outcomes. The research involved students performing value analysis of an academic and research building facility after being randomly assigned to different teams representing different value engineering methods and/or combinations. Students were surveyed about their opinions of the methods. Also, sustainability faculty experts evaluated the reports of the students relative to achieving building sustainability outcomes by using the LEED assessment checklist. The final stage involved presentations to value engineering practitioners who provided feedback through teleconference discussions and online surveys about the potential limitations identified in the conventional value engineering process and the alternative value engineering methods developed to counter the limitations relative to achieving improved building sustainability outcomes. The findings supported the hypothesis. A framework for modified value engineering methodology was presented to provide avenues that may be followed to achieve improved building sustainability outcomes.