Thursday, June 6, 2002
FHWA 24-02
Contact: Lori Irving
Telephone: 202-366-2996
FHWA Survey Shows $932 Million in Savings From Use of
Value Engineering Techniques
State highway and transportation departments saved
taxpayers more than $932 million in fiscal 2001 by applying value engineering
methods and techniques, according to a national survey by the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA).
“These savings are the result of partnership between
the FHWA and state departments of transportation that work diligently to
administer the value engineering program,” FHWA Administrator Mary E. Peters
said. “Once again, value
engineering has proved to be a highly cost-effective means of increasing
productivity and improving the quality of highway construction.”
The
survey is the result of value engineering studies completed on 380 projects
nationwide in fiscal 2001. Based on
these studies, 1,058 alternatives and recommendations were approved,
resulting in a savings of $932 million.
Under
value engineering, highway projects are reviewed and opportunities for better,
less expensive means of completing the project are analyzed.
The idea is to improve project quality and productivity, foster
innovation, optimize design elements, and ensure overall economical
costs.
Money
saved through value engineering enables states to get more value from their
highway construction dollars. For
example, if a state has $100 million to spend on federal-aid highway
construction and plans to distribute it on 10 $10 million projects, a value
engineering savings of $500,000 on each project would yield $5 million in total
savings. Savings can be redirected to help pay for other highway work.
Although value engineering
has been in use in the highway industry for more than 30 years, its use has
increased substantially in recent years because of additional emphasis on the
program at the state level, increased value engineering training and technical
assistance provided by FHWA, and a 1995 congressional mandate requiring value
engineering on all federal-aid projects of $25 million or more on the National
Highway System (NHS). States with
active value engineering programs continue to experience significant savings.
Additional
information on the program is available on the FHWA=s
value engineering website, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ve/
###