Value Engineering 

At Cullen, we do all we can to deliver the best product at the lowest price. This ideal formula is always tempered by the realities of project budget, building goals, and prevailing prices. Nevertheless, we provide our clients with value engineering options as a routine part of our delivery process.

The Key to Value Engineering

Value Engineering is a systematic method to improve the Value of goods and services by discovering the function (or performance) of an item and measuring this against cost. Value, so defined, is the ratio of Function (or, functional performance of material/component/item) to Cost.

Value can therefore be increased by either improving the performance of an item or reducing its cost.

Value Upgrades Never Compromise Quality

Cullen’s foundational assumption when performing Value Engineering is that quality will never be reduced as a consequence of pursuing value upgrades through cost reduction or performance improvement.

Four Methodical Steps

The four basic steps in Cullen’s approach to Value Engineering are:

• Information Gathering. We initially ask: What are the requirements for the material/system/component/item? We try to determine what functions or performance characteristics are important. What does the material/system/component/item do? What must it do? What should it do? What could it do? What must it not do?
  
• Creative Alternatives. In this stage, we ask: What are the various alternative ways of meeting requirements? What else will perform the desired function?
  
• Evaluation. At this stage, all the alternatives are assessed by how well they meet the required functions and how much will be saved.
  
• Presentation. This is our final stage, where the best alternative will be chosen and recommended to our client for final decision.
  

Optimizing Cost

Value engineering reduces costs, not project scope. This can be done in several areas:

• Material substitutions
• Process efficiencies
• Energy efficiencies