Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the construction industry in one region of the world. The bal-
ance between the price of labour and materials has changed
over the years, especially in the so-called 'developed' coun-
tries. In these the cost of labour relative to the cost of mate-
rials has increased greatly, which has changed the perceived
value of different design solutions and the balance achieved
in many other facets of modern society. As a result in recent
decades there has been a desire to choose design solutions that
(implicitly or explicitly) tend to minimise the labour compo-
nent required in their construction, often at the expense of the
use of more material. The labour component can also be that
associated with the design stage, as well as that directly related
to the construction of the entity concerned.
When materials have been expensive relative to the cost of
labour, designers have historically put considerably greater
effort into minimising the use of materials to produce an eco-
nomical design; which was commonly the situation throughout
history. For example, the balance between the cost of labour and
materials in Uruguay in the 1950s was such that it was econom-
ically viable to build simple warehouses using doubly curved
brick shells (Thirion, 2010). This situation enabled the fam-
ous architect-engineer Eladio Dieste to produce some amazing
buildings. Currently such circumstances are more likely to exist
in the so-called 'developing' countries of the world.
Thus elaborate structural forms and design solutions become
possible even for commonplace types of construction when
material costs are high relative to labour costs. In the future as
issues such as the amount of embodied carbon that is contained
in a material become increasingly central to designers' consid-
erations, the resulting impact upon the 'cost' of construction
is expected to encourage designs that either use what are now
commonly termed 'low carbon' materials (see Chapter 72 of
the
ICE Manual of Construction Materials
(Forde, 2009) for
more details on low-carbon building materials) or reduce the
use of materials with a high embodied carbon content. These
drivers are likely to be amplified should carbon pricing and
trading activities become influential factors in the design and
construction of new buildings and in the refurbishment or
upgrading of existing buildings.
This evolving change in focus is expected to provide not only
a new stimulus to designers to meet these challenges, but poten-
tially also more complexity in the way that matters such as value
and the suitability of different design options are assessed.
Various facets of the wider framework of sustainability and
environment impact related issues that society now expects the
construction industry to address are discussed in the next sec-
tion of this chapter. These complement the economic consid-
erations discussed above. Jowitt (2009) has argued in his 2009
Presidential Address to the Institution of Civil Engineers that a
shift needs to take place not just towards whole-life/life-cycle
costs, but that we need to go further and move towards whole-
life values; with engineers taking a more systems-orientated
view of the world in order to address the wider planetary and
societal challenges that we face.
Box 5.2
Value management and value engineering
Value, in its broadest sense, is the balance between the benefit
delivered to the owner and the cost of doing so. Value provides a
measure of whether a project is worth doing and how this can be
quantified in business terms (though not necessarily just in financial
terms). Value management provides a structured approach to the
assessment and development of a project to increase the likelihood
of achieving the required benefits for an acceptable cost or use of
resources, thereby achieving optimum whole life value for money.
The value management process is about ensuring that the right
choices are made about obtaining the optimum balance of benefit
in relation to cost and risk.
Value management in construction is a continuous process
in which all the components and processes involved are critically
appraised to determine whether better value alternatives or solutions
are available. Value management is also helpful in reducing wasteful
processes and identifying less efficient aspects of the design, con-
struction and/or maintenance regimes being considered.
Value management is about enhancing value and not about cut-
ting cost, although this may be a by-product. The principles and
techniques employed during the process of developing a project
aim to achieve the required quality at optimum life-cycle cost. Value
management is important because it enables stakeholders to define
and achieve their needs through facilitated workshops that encour-
age participation of all stakeholders, achieving end-user buy-in
and teamworking within an integrated project team. Thus value
management activities centre on the identification of the require-
ments that add demonstrable value in meeting the defined business
need. Accordingly the focus of value management is on delivery
of the required functionality - whilst recognising time, cost and
quality constraints - in order to maximise project value. In some
circumstances improved life-cycle value requires extra initial capital
expenditure.
Key differences between value management and cost reduction
are that the former:
Positively seeks an optimum balance between quality, life-cycle
■
cost and time (i.e. value).
Encourages all project participants (including the owner) to work
■
together as an integrated project team to utilise their creative
potential to develop better value solutions.
Provides a structured, auditable and accountable framework for
■
the process.
Value engineering is a part of value management which considers
specific aspects of the design, construction, operation and man-
agement. Many projects include some unnecessary costs. However,
cutting cost without proper analysis of ways of meeting the require-
ments is likely to lessen value. The removal of wasteful processes
and/or practices that incur cost, but do not contribute to meeting
the requirements, increases value. Early effort put into developing
the project brief pays dividends - see Section 5.6.2. Cutting invest-
ment in developing the brief commonly leads to delay and cost over-
runs later on in the project as a result of changes in requirements
and misunderstandings.
Whole-life and life-cycle costing are vital elements of value man-
agement as they cover all the costs relating to a facility from project
inception through to disposal - they are discussed in Box 5.1 above.
Issues of health and safety, sustainability, design quality, buil-
dability, operation and maintenance and disposal should all be
considered during value management reviews and evaluation of
options.
In the past inadequate use and understanding of value man-
agement and risk management have acted as major barriers to
