Paul Gonzales of HDR, Inc., Dallas, Texas, reinforced the need for keeping the design objective at the forefront. "Value engineering is engineering systems to accomplish the same results while reducing the construction cost and maintaining the integrity."
This ideal isn't always met, however. "As long as the objective of the system is retained, reducing the cost corresponds to increasing the value," Daniel Fagan of Teng & Associates, Chicago, said. "But, more often than not, the term 'value engineering' is used to refer to reducing the cost of a building by reducing the scope of the work." For example, he explained, a hot water system for a laundry could be designed with a water softener, which results in a better quality finished laundry product using less soap. As a value engineering option, though, the water softener could be deleted, Fagan said. This would cut the cost, but rather than providing the same results, the parameters would instead be revised.