What is the future for Early Contractor Involvement and Value Engineering post Grenfell?

Question

How should the industry now promote the benefits of Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) and value engineering (VE) in a post Grenfell world demanding improvements in quality throughout the whole chain of design and construction ?
How do we re-engineer the process of VE back to being a 'value' driven approach from what has largely become an exercise in finding cost savings?
In what ways should designers, cost consultants, contractors and specialist suppliers work together to gain a better understanding of the quality v cost conundrum?
Are we now entering an era where genuinely greater attention is paid to the whole lifecycle cost and quality of built assets and particularly to performance during operational use over their lifespan?

Andrew Crawford · Answer

Steve

Sadly human nature has dictated in the past that not everyone learns from the mistakes made and avoid repeating them going forward. Lets hope that the tragedy of Grenfell will never happen again.

I do think that ECI will remain, but we all in the industry from the Employer, Designers, PQS's, Contractors, Sub-Contractors, Suppliers, Manufacturers and Inspectors have to focus on the value, rather than cheapest price. This needs to happen and think twice about what is selected and/or changed in the VE process meets life safety standards.

Lots of questions you have raised but I do think that first and foremost it is the responsibility of the person putting forward the alternative to do a complete a researched basis analysis first and ensure that the product meets the same specification in all respects or is better than what has been specified. Evidence that the product does meet or exceed that already specified should be provided at the same time as that person puts forward it as an option.

There then needs to be a separate process of validating by reference to the standards and regulations what has been proposed by a separate member of the construction team. Only if the proposed product passes all of the criteria and not just price and programme that it should be seriously considered for incorporating.

There is always the option of saying no and leaving what has been specified to be incorporated into the Works

What is the future for Early Contractor Involvement and Value Engineering post Grenfell?

Value-engineering

Early-Contractor-Involvement

Steve Hardy

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