Defect Cost Reduction in High-Rise Building Projects in Bangkok by Using Value Engineering Concept

Normally, owners of high-rise building projects in Thailand desire to see their projects finish as fast as possible, within the budget, and achieve the expected quality. The project must be completed on time and meet the owners’ satisfaction, to avoid problems that stipulated in the contract signed by the owners to lenders and customers. From this condition, contractors need to compete with other companies as there are many contractors to choose from by the owners.

Therefore, contractors have to concern in reduction of project cost to gain more competitive advantage than other contractors. According to Jongcharoensub (2007), cost overrun is coming from quantity. On-site management cannot save cost or minimize cost overruns at the given progress. Thus, contractors need to emphasize on construction cost management. In addition, there are many techniques for managing the construction cost such as cost control system, value chain, value engineering, etc. There are contractors which loss their profit, or they cannot maintain their profit. Thus, it is quite difficult for them to improve their competitiveness.

Mw. Wattanachai Tanjedreu made a case study aimed to investigate the advantages of each construction method and techniques which are utilized in high-rise building projects. Furthermore, different method means different input of resources that affect to direct and indirect of the project costs and then affect to the construction firms. The purposes of his research were as follows:

1. To identify how value engineering could be applied in defect cost reduction

2. To investigate the procedure of value engineering applying in high-rise building project.

3. To propose recommendation of value engineering applying in defect cost reduction

Conclusion

Generally, the general contractor is having high or low profit from the performance of the construction cost control. However, the contractor faces difficulties to control the operation cost due to many factors affecting the performance of the work such as labor skill and inappropriate method of statement and lack of experience of engineers. These are the causes of work defection in high rise building construction project which is the main causes to create additional operation cost from reworks.

From the conclusion of each case, the researcher found that some factors in the same phase are influencing in different way to the operation of that activity. Table below illustrates the influencing factors of each phases of value engineering on site operation.

Conclusion of study

 In the selection phase, observation is mostly used for observing the quality of work because the quality is the main issue creating defections of work which must be rework. After observation, record is necessary in order to know exactly about the detail of work. The Engineer has to record about the defect recognition to further clearly identify the defect on work. Finally, a good judgment must be used in order to predict the possibility if that activity will create further problem or will have poor value again.

In investigation phase, observation is used for monitoring working procedure or method of statement. After that, it is use for measuring the construction cost (labor and materials cost) and quality of work in order to know the performance of the work. Finally, record is used for recording the information of work in terms of time spent, labor usage, materials usage, and quality level from work. In addition, productivity and defects should be also recorded. 

In speculation phase, brainstorming is the core. The main objective of this is finding the alternatives. Thus, this phase needs all engineers in team to think of new idea for solving that problem of the project. The key person in brainstorming is project manager or project engineer because they have high work experience. They may see some solution before, or they may apply some method that appropriate to solve the problem. 

In evaluation phase, communication and discussion are using to point out the possible advantages and disadvantages of alternative from speculation phase for preparing information to make decision which method should be used. 

In development phase, discussion is used to make decision about the finding of advantages and disadvantages of alternative to correctly do the experiment from evaluation phase. After that, this information will be used for making decision to present the best alternative to project manager or site manager in order to make the last decision to choose the alternative to implement.

In presentation phase, the study team communicates to project manager or site manager about the advantages and disadvantages in all aspect that they studied. After that, project manager or site manager make decision to choose the best alternative for implementation. In addition, project manager or site manager should have a good judgment in order to select the best alternative not like alternative. 

In implementation phase, the responsible engineer needs to observe the way workers working to know that workers do follow the method that study team is using in development phase. Moreover, engineer has to observe quality of work reaching to satisfy level or still have defect. Then, engineer has to record the method of statement by writing, taking picture, or taking video to keep it as project database of which may be used in the future. Moreover, engineer has to record the productivity and cost information also in order to know the performance of work. And, the last one is record the defect of work to make sure that this method can reduce or remove the defect that they might face before in order to get more confidence about the alternative method to solve the problem. 

Recommendation for implementation 

The project team members should develop manual for studying onsite value engineering in order to give a direction when they found the problem giving poor value activity. They can use that manual as a guideline for solving the problem which may take less time than to study again from the beginning. Moreover, the studied team should teach knowledge that they have learned to other member in their company in order to reduce the operation cost of the company which will give more profit. To motivate engineer, the company should give recognition by promoting the engineer to higher position, or giving awards to engineer who develop value engineer onsite. 

His thesis abstract is copied and posted below. 

Abstract

 In order to reduce the operating cost, defect is the significant issue because it can cost more and more to project due to many influencing factors such as skill of worker. However, controlling of work defect is not too difficult, but it is not easy, also. To control the work defect efficiently, engineers should conduct tools for controlling and monitoring work method. This study was concerning in value engineering concept adapting to solve the defect in execution stage. This study was conducted to: 1) identify how value engineering could be applied in defect cost reduction, 2) investigate the procedure of value engineering applying in high-rise building project, and 3) propose recommendation of value engineering applying in defect cost reduction. The data was collected from high-rise building project at execution stage. Target of research is senior site engineers and site engineers. The findings were discussed, and the recommendations for improving construction method were propose in this study.