Value Engineering is a series of aggressive actions focused on lowering the direct cost and cycle time of building a house. It applies to both new and existing plans in search of ways to reduce unnecessary costs while increasing quality and reliability of a home. As a home builder, you are a manufacturer. You must continually improve, adjust and refine the construction process to effectively compete and operate in any economic market.
Construction Research Group assembles your team onsite or online to take an in-depth look at each plan. This process is designed to establish relationships of all building components within each plan. For volume builders wanting to achieve optimal efficiency, this is an absolute must for the high frequency plans your lineup. For this process to be truly effective, the key players should include your internal construction, design and purchasing staff, as well as any suppliers and engineers that provide you service.
In the first stage of this process, top-down overlays of all architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical plans are compiled and combined. Its main purpose is to identify potential spatial conflicts or interference conditions for all building components and systems. From this vantage point, workable solutions can be facilitated between builder, designer and vendors in synchronizing building components.
The second stage is to identify minor plan modifications that will maximize the use of IRC prescriptive framing and wall bracing methods. This will pinpoint specific areas of the building requiring structural design, such as narrow braced wall segments, collector trusses and tall walls. This stage is also an excellent opportunity to make design adjustments to implement advanced framing techniques, commonly referred to “Optimum Value Engineering” or OVE.
The third stage relies heavily on of the estimators and the purchasing staff to ensure the accuracy of their takeoffs and their data entry into the purchase/accounting systems. It is an opportunity to visualize each plan as a whole, and to continually refine the overall precision of the bill of materials takeoff. It is also an opportunity to explore how buyer options react with the structure, as well as react with overlapping options. Once construction begins, all field purchase orders and takeoff errors should be monitored, validated and corrected before the next build of the plan.
To borrow a phrase from my friend, Dale Ahrendt with KB Home, "When you intersect these three concepts, you’re not just splitting the atom; you’re splitting the nucleus of the atom."