ABSTRACT

Based on the author¹s experiences in leading VM / VE workshops on several projects with very broad scope lines in 1998, this paper discusses the use of FAST to refine and control the direction of a VM workshop and, ultimately, the project under study. Three specific case studies are presented, ranging from FAST development by the VM team in the conventional manner to CVS development of a FAST diagram off-line encompassing both program and project development. Use of the FAST diagrams themselves as Focus Diagrams can, similarly, yield a framework to shape and control programs and projects, particularly for matters of major policy and complex/controversial issues.

INTRODUCTION

FAST diagrams have often been a hot bed of contention between value practitioners. Some say if you do not use FAST, you are not following the value methodology. Fortunately, the prevalent conventional wisdom is that as long as you are performing function analysis in some meaningful way, then you are true to the value methodology. The discussion here is not intended to renew this controversy, but to explore how FAST can become the framework for deriving balanced solutions to complex and, perhaps, contentious problems.

1998 provided McClintock Value Professionals (now Team Focus - MVP) with a full scale function analysis / FAST laboratory, i.e. three VE study assignments on complex freeway projects for the same client, the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario, Canada (MTO). Two of these assignments entailed eight day combination Module I VE Training and project review workshops for over 25 personnel, which gave us extra time and personnel to explore different methods of looking at function. The result was a new appreciation of the power of FAST, and a field tested approach to make FAST, well, faster.

VALUE ENGINEERING: PARADIGM PLIANCY IN ACTION 

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Published in June 1996 Value World (Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 1 – 3) by SAVE International

ABSTRACT

In reading Future Edge by Joel Barker, the futurist who has brought the word paradigm into everyday usage, the author was struck by the themes common to Value Engineering (VE). VE is in itself a paradigm. As a refresher:

“A paradigm is a set of rules ... that ... establishes or defines boundaries and ... tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful.”

"A paradigm shift ... is a change to ... a new set of rules."

In other words, a paradigm shift forces you to look in a different direction, much as a  VE workshop often does. These common themes are discussed to gain insight into how and why VE works so well, and explore how understanding the paradigm concepts can improve the application of VE to anything.

INTRODUCTION

In the study of paradigms, several things will be learned. First, people’s perceptions are influenced by the paradigms within which they operate and people resist change because they are so good at their existing paradigms. The VE paradigm helps us liberate our customers from their paradigms in a supportive, creative, “pliant” environment so they can accept enhancement of their paradigm, or even a paradigm shift. Second, it’s an outsider who usually leads to a paradigm shift or enhancement. The VE practitioner is well equipped to be that leader, or “paradigm shifter”.

Third, those who apply the paradigm enhancement or shift their paradigm first, through what is mostly an act of faith, will gain the most. Especially with a paradigm shift, where everyone goes back to zero, the ones using the new paradigm will enjoy great success while everyone else scrambles to understand what happened and catch up. With the application of VE, our customers are much more likely to be there when the paradigm shift occurs.

Finally, a new paradigm, or even a significant paradigm enhancement, gives us a new way to see the world and a new approach to solving our problems. We know VE has always succeeded because we do look at the world a different way through function analysis and we tend to challenge everything. The consideration that what we are doing may be leading to a paradigm shift, however, may be new to us. It serves to remind us that our VE paradigm is a powerful tool, one that can have a profound effect on the world around us. As VE practitioners, we need to continue to wield it for a wider range of customers, with increased urgency, scope, and pliancy.

THE DREAD OF VE: UNDERSTANDING WHY IT'S NOT USED MORE

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Published in Jan/Feb/Mar 1989 Value World (Vol. II, No. 4, pp. 12 – 14) by SAVE International

ABSTRACT

The dread of VE is real. This paper begins by exploring the various forms that this dread takes and explains why the use of VE less widespread as a result. It concludes that the dread of VE can be overcome by facing it head on. It first helps us recognize the form of the objection to VE, from territoriality to schedule disruption to the fear of loss of control. It then develops specific strategies for each objection to help us overcome them in the marketplace.  The paper urges VE practitioners and/or advocates to be creative in how we market VE and begin eliminating the dread of VE.

INTRODUCTION

"Dear Lord, why do they have to VE my project? My preliminary drawings are completed and boy, are they well coordinated. We could cruise through final design! Using many of the standard details we've used for years, we could produce a great product and make a nice profit. I'd look good and just maybe get that promotion I've been after.

Instead, those @#*$% Value Engineers will come in here criticizing my work, swinging that cost-cutting scythe, making me look bad at every turn, filling the client's heads with all that nonsense. And delays!?! What if we have to redesign? How can I meet my completion date? Why me?"

Who of us "Value Engineers" can really relate to the above statement? Unfortunately (although, I'm glad to say, it's only unfortunate in the context of this article), most of us can't! As a design engineer long before I heard of VE, I should be able to relate to it. However, when the biggest, most complex project I ever designed was "subjected" to VE, I did not react with dread. I was curious. I pitched in with the VE Team

My boss was a completely different story. After complaining about VE vociferously in the days leading up to the workshop, he continued to express outrage at the process long after the design team had embraced the improvements. Why did this educated man view VE like it was voodoo?

Why the difference? The dread of VE. Like most VE professionals, VE made sense to me at my first introduction to it and I embraced it. Due to our nature, our personality, or whatever it is that makes us VE professionals, we have not personally experienced the dread of VE. However, we need to understand the dread of VE in others so we can overcome it.

TRICKLING FILTERS AND PREMISE PLATEAUS

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Presented in June 1987 at the SAVE International Conference held in St. Paul, MN and October 1997 at MIDCON “87, Focus on Basics for Excellence, Detroit, W I

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the concept of 'Premise Plateau" and demonstrates its effectiveness in spurring VE Team creativity in two VE Workshops. The VE Team recommendation for conversion of two trickling filter tanks into buildings was a direct result of two premise plateaus and was implemented.

Based on this and other successes, the Premise Plateau is recommended as a valuable tool for VE Workshops.

INTRODUCTION

I am sure many of you know what a trickling filter is and some of you are aware of what a "premise plateau" is! I am also confident that very few of you know what both of them are! Therefore, to be safe, I will define both in layperson's terms.

TRICKLING FILTER - A bunch of rocks (or plastic media or redwood slats, etc.) over which sewage trickles and is treated by bugs (micro-organisms) living on the rocks. The bugs eat the impurities, grow old, fall off and are settled, with the impurities, in a sedimentation basin.  

PREMISE PLATEAU - A creative thought process started when someone forces you to make a specific idea (premise) work. The premise may be totally opposite to your current concept. For example, design a building as three stories instead of one-story or reuse an existing structure instead of demolishing it.

Now you may ask, what do trickling filters and premise plateaus have in common? The story told in this paper will answer this question, not so you understand what trickling filters are, but so you can use the 'premise plateau" technique in your workshops. In addition, the story demonstrates a neat use for old trickling filters.

VE - A TOOL FOR QUALITY CONTROL IN DESIGN

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Presented in June 1988 at the SAVE International Conference held in Torrance, CA
Published in Spring 1996 Quality by Design, (Vol. 9, No. 2) by William Hayden, Jr.

ABSTRACT

Quality Control (QC) is a concern of ever growing importance in today's design firms. Value Engineering (VE) is a powerful tool which can be applied very successfully to QC.

QC programs and VE are compared to show that they belong together. Characteristics of a VE workshop, performed for QC purposes, are identified. Where VE workshops fit into a QC program is discussed, as well as the place for some VE techniques outside of the total workshop. Finally, observations are made as to why VE belongs in the QC program of design firms.

INTRODUCTION

Unfortunately, Value Engineering (VE) is considered to be a nemesis by many AE design firms. The design firm completes a preliminary design and a VE Team from other firms perform a VE workshop on its design. Recommended changes to the design, no matter how well justified by savings, flexibility, logic, etc., are viewed by the design firm as ... well, as changes.

VE can play an active role in a design firm's project management and QC program. It is a powerful tool and, when viewed by the design firm as an ally instead of an enemy, it becomes even more effective.

With the importance of quality control in today's litigious climate, the design firm should leave no stone unturned for tools to improve quality. VE can serve the firm well by helping it provide technically sound, cost-effective, quality projects which satisfy client goals and, therefore, are viewed as quality projects by the client. This is the ultimate goal and the justification for use of VE techniques and workshops for QC.

VALUE ENGINEERING IN PUBLIC EDUCATION

SELLING IT TO THE UNINITIATED

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Presented in June 1998 at the SAVE International Conference held in Washington, DC.

ABSTRACT

The application of Value Management to public education issues and projects is rare in New York and many other states, in spite of successes in Washington and Virginia. It is difficult to sell VM to those uninitiated in its success, especially in the volatile world of public education. How to sell it will be discussed, from the grass roots level to the Governor. Examples will be given of VM success in one large school district and the lessons learned will be shared.

INTRODUCTION

With an 18 year background in planning for wastewater and solid waste facilities, with population projections and regulators galore, the task of planning for education as a school board member did not appear daunting. Funny how wrong one can be when he has no experience on which to base a decision. When will a new housing development explode? What’s the birthrate in the district? How many kids will switch from parochial schools to your school at ninth grade? When will the state budget get passed? And will the public approve a $14 million computer technology referendum when two local factories have just closed their doors??

In many areas of the country, the only taxes which the public has any direct influence on are their school taxes. Spending the public’s money gets very difficult when they have to approve it by direct vote. Money is tight! Shared decision making is here to stay and everyone wants to be heard. Local politics are volatile since every issue is so close to home. In this atmosphere, why doesn’t every school district use VM for its capital programs? For VM to step into the breech, it must be sold! How we sell it to the “uninitiated” leaders of education is the topic of this discussion.

STEWARDSHIP AND THE VALUE PRACTITIONER

Scot McClintock, P.E., CVS (Life) 

Presented in June 1997 at the SAVE International Conference held in Seattle, WA

 ABSTRACT

Value practitioners have a gift for recognizing value. We need to focus our gift on the world around us, beyond our job and project responsibilities. Reasons why we should be stewards of our world are discussed, including benefits to our lives, our communities, and our profession. Examples of such stewardship are presented, both from real life experiences of the author and other value practitioners and from a vision of what could be. Conclusions address the rewards, which the value profession will reap when our expertise benefits the world around us.

INTRODUCTION

Value practitioners have a gift for recognizing value. We collect information, analyze the functions, generate creative ideas to satisfy the functions, evaluate to select the best ideas, develop those ideas, and sell the best ideas to the decision-makers. Hopefully, we all are able to earn a living doing it. The question weighed here is should we value professionals be extending the scope lines of our application of this gift, which many people and organizations don’t have, beyond our jobs.

Stewardship is the application of our gifts for the betterment of the world around us. The word is most often used in a Judeo-Christian context, e.g. 1 Peter 4:10, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” Granted, in this context, the gift refers to salvation. However, the principle is the same for any God given talent, even a talent for recognizing value. We need to add the required secondary function of SHARE GIFT to the critical path of functions in our personal lives.