Impacts of Value Engineering Related Practices In Ethiopian Federal Road Projects
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Date
2018-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
In spite of the government‟s prior attention to development of infrastructure facilities such as
roads, research indicates that the Ethiopian federal road construction sector still faces significant
cost overrun, time overrun and performance problems thereby reducing the overall value of the
road infrastructures. Management tools, such as value engineering, can result in the required
and/or improved performance of a project at the lowest possible life-cycle cost and assure the
greatest value for money being invested. Though research indicated that value engineering is not
being applied in Ethiopian federal road projects, recently value engineering related practices are
being observed in some projects.
This study attempts to research the impacts of value engineering related practices in design and
construction phases of federal road projects administered by the Ethiopian Roads Authority. A
thorough literature review has been done to apprehend the concepts and techniques of value
engineering as well as the global and national experiences. Cases of randomly selected 6 design
projects and 6 construction projects have been analyzed. A survey questionnaire was also
distributed to randomly selected consulting and construction firms working with the Ethiopian
roads authority and the responses were analyzed.
The analysis result indicates that the impact of the value engineering in the design service
contracts is increasing the original design service contract amount and duration by 1% and 2%
respectively. Whereas, the impact of value engineering practices on construction projects is
observed to reduce time (or have no time implication) and reduce cost by 0.65% of the original
contract amount or 0.51% of the final/estimated contract amount.
Finally, it is recommended that the government should formulate an appropriate policy aimed at
safeguarding better value for the money being spent in road construction industry, emphasis
should be given to life-cycle costs of road projects, design projects should undergo value
engineering study prior to floating a tender; and professional associations should promote value
engineering through training and workshops.
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Keywords
Value engineering, Job Plan, Function analysis, Value Analysis, Value Methodology, Road construction