FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO NON-ADOPTION OF VALUE ENGINEERING METHODOLOGY FOR BUILDING SERVICES

Abstract

The procurement of building services (BS) constitutes a great challenge in the construction industries of both developed and developing countries. Adoption of value engineering (VE) methodology could aid BS components selection at design and installations stages. However, the methodology is not appropriately used by the project team during design and installation of BS. Leading to overdesign, poor quality specification, lack of team work and unreliable budget estimate. The main objective of this paper is to determine the factors preventing the adoption of VE in the procurement of BS projects. A questionnaire was design to collect information on 18 generic factors contributing to non-adoption of VE. The questionnaire was administered to randomly selected practitioners in clients’, contracting and consulting types of organisations in Malaysia. The result shows that lack of understanding of VE by clients organisations, lack of request for the services, and inadequate time to conduct the study are the most important factors deterring adoption of VE for building services. The factors analysis of result for the 18 variables produced a four (4) factors result as: Non-involvement of stakeholders; education and traditional practice; resistance to change, and lack of experience about VE. It is essentially important for industry clients to understand the importance of adopting VE so as to ensure that time required for the study are pre-planned and budgeted for at project inception