Organizational responses of public sector clients in Canada to the implementation of value management: lessons for the UK construction industry

Abstract

Value management is a philosophy and set of techniques that has its origins in the US.manufacturing industry of the 1940s. It has been increasingly used in the North American construction industry and is now being used in the UK construction industry by a small group of contractors and consultancy firms who are offering it as a service to clients. This paper provides a brief review of the historical development of and approaches to value management, as practised in North America and then details two case studies of how client bodies have responded to its implementation. One case study is concerned with events at an organizational level whilst the second tracks the client response to a value management exercise on a project. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the lessons learned from these case studies for the UK construction industry.

Keywords:

• Value management
• building process
• client organizations
• design team
• function
• cost