ABSTRACT
North American value engineering provides a well-documented basis upon which to build a value management method and is therefore considered in this context.
Value engineering is based on the work of Lawrence Miles who, in the 1940s was a purchase engineer with the General Electric Company (GEC). At that time, manufacturing industry in the United States was running at maximum capacity which resulted in shortages of a number of key raw materials and components. GEC wished to expand its production and Miles was assigned the task of purchasing the materials to permit this. Often he was unable to obtain the specific material or component specified by the designer so Miles reasoned, ‘if I cannot obtain the product I must obtain an alternative which performs the same function’. A characteristic of value engineering from the beginning was the team approach to creativity which allowed the generation of many alternatives to the existing solution. Where alternatives were found they were tested and approved by the product designer.
