Value Engineering: A Design-Build Mission

Picture this scenario: You just received a great set of plans for your future build. You can’t wait to get started and you immediately starting shopping out the construction costs with various contractors and builders. But every single one of them comes back to you with prices that seem 3-5 times more expensive than you initially budgeted for! So what happened? The plans you have in your hand state that costs should be right within your discussed budget, but that isn’t the case now. This is common for those who spend the time and money to get a set of architectural plans without consulting other key members of the development team as well. This is where a design-build firm comes in and provides you with Value Engineering.

What is Value Engineering

Value Engineering is the management of a project with the goal of identifying individual functions, steps, and requirements so that they can be provided at a lower cost. This means value engineering will suggest, substitute, and innovatively find solutions to items that typically cost more with a more affordable option. When put into a construction standpoint, this achieves nearly identical build results with reduced cost. Having a design-build manage and oversee your project from start to finish and be involved in every step can provide valuable savings and time-saving.

How does Sustainable Design Build do Value Engineering?

We do things a little differently than other typical design-build firms. The standard design-build company will be full of architects and engineers who create your building design with a cost estimation on construction and then subcontract all the trades out for the actual construction of your project. We do things a little differently, which is almost flipped. We are a design-build firm that is made of builders and collaborates with trade partners who share our passions and ideals. We will subcontract the design, architecture, and engineering out and handle the construction ourselves. This way we can control the construction costs through the design and architecture phase which allows us more precise cost corroboration during the actual construction of the project which we oversee and manage. Oftentimes, we see a disconnect from initial plans and design concepts in relation to the actual costs of construction. This disconnect can make or break any project, leaving clients stranded and out of funds.