Agenda - 05-04-1999 - 7e - Laserfiche WebLink

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Memorandum TO: County Commissioners From: John M. Link, Jr. County Manager Date: March 20,1999 RE: Project Management The Board has historically expressed concern about the high cost of construction for County funded projects. Both Board members and County staff have explored ways to address this challenge through various means of project management. I attended a session at a recent City /County manager conference that dealt with value engineering. Based on what I learned during this session, I believe value engineering can fill the gap that we have recognized and allow us to use the County's construction dollars more effectively and efficiently. What is Value Engineering? Value Engineering offers a way to stretch construction dollars and to obtain a much needed second opinion based on a reliable and measurable approach. Value engineering systematically searches out high cost areas in a design and arrives at the best balance between cost, performance and reliability. Value engineering is not a design review. In summary value engineering offers the following benefits: • it follows a Value Engineering job plan that analyzes the project from a variety of angles in order to obtain the best answers for the specific project; • it uses a multi disciplined approach to "see' the project from as many different points of view as possible; • it questions everything. There are no "sacred cows" with value engineering. • it separates "needs' from "desires' • it employs life cycle cost analysis of critical components • it maintains a sensitivity to the design and the designer's point of view when creating • it also, however, analyzes the project from the owner /operator's points of view. - As a general rule of thumb, it is suggested that any project whose estimated constriction cost exceeds $5 million will benefit significantly from the value engineering process. As indicated earlier, Value Engineering is not review of a final design in an effort to cut a project such that it falls within budget. In fact, the continuum of value engineering effectiveness shows it to be most effective if begun during the design concept phase.