What is Value Engineering on a facade?

It is finding a different arrangement of the system that meets the same performance targets for less money. The wind load, water tightness, thermal value, and appearance targets all stay, and the work goes into finding a cheaper route to them. It differs from cost cutting, which lowers the target so the price fits.

At what stage is Value Engineering most effective?

As early as possible, and in practice between schematic and detailed design. While the system, module, and glass make-up are still unfixed, changing them costs almost nothing. Once shop drawings are approved and material is ordered, the cost of change starts eating the saving.

What is the difference between Value Engineering and reducing the specification?

Value Engineering keeps the target and changes the method. Reducing the specification keeps the method and changes the target. Both produce a lower tender figure, but only the first hands over a facade that performs as promised.

Does Value Engineering delay a project?

During design, no. The review runs alongside design work that is happening anyway. What does delay a project is the opposite: discovering the facade is over budget after shop drawings are approved, and having to draw it again.

Services / Value Engineering

Not the cheapest, but the most optimal.

Value Engineering means finding another route to the same performance at a lower cost. The target holds. What gets recalculated is the way to reach it.

Discuss your project

Send your facade drawing over WhatsApp. You get technical questions back, not a form.

Trusted by

Agung Sedayu Group
Pulau Intan
Jaya Konstruksi
Wijaya Karya
PP (Persero)
Atlas Construction

What we actually do

The term gets used for two completely different things.

Value Engineering on a facade means taking the performance targets that have already been set — wind load, water and air tightness, thermal value, appearance — and finding a different arrangement of the system that meets them for less. The targets do not move. The route to them does.

That is not cost cutting, which lowers the target until the number fits: thinner glass, smaller mullions, a cheaper sealant. It does produce a lower tender price, and the cost reappears a few years later as water coming in.

It is also not the academic sense of the term, which discusses the method in general across every kind of project. On a facade the savings come from a handful of very specific places, and those places can be listed.

When it can still be done

The room to cut cost closes far faster than most people expect.

At concept and schematic design almost everything is still open: the system, the module size, the glass make-up, how panels are fixed. A change here costs close to nothing, because all that changes is a drawing.

Once shop drawings are approved and profiles are ordered, very little room is left. An alternative that would have paid for itself now demands redrawing, resubmission, and reordering, and the cost of the change eats the saving it was meant to produce.

So the right question is not how much can be saved. It is how early we are brought in. Most Value Engineering requests arrive after a price has come back and been judged too high, which is the point at which only the least attractive options remain.

If your project is still in design, now is the cheapest moment to ask. If it is past that, there is still work to do, though less of it.

What we examine

Savings on a facade come from the same short list of places every time.

Glass make-up

Often the largest single saving. Layers, coating type, and thickness follow from wind load and the thermal target, and different make-ups frequently satisfy both at very different prices.

Span and mullion depth

Profile depth follows the span between supports. Moving a support point, or adding one transom, can sometimes drop the whole profile to a smaller and cheaper size.

System choice

Stick, unitized, or semi-unitized. This shifts cost between material, labour, access equipment, and time, so the total can change without a single specification being lowered.

Panel module size

Larger panels cut the number of joints but add transport and craneage cost. There is an optimum for each project, and it is rarely calculated.

Brackets and anchors

Brackets follow the structure's tolerance. A more realistic tolerance, agreed early, reduces the number of bracket types and the amount of adjustment work on site.

Finish

Anodizing and powder coating differ in cost, and differ again in how easily a colour can be matched if something is replaced later. We generally recommend powder coating, because its colour can be reordered against the same code years afterwards.

How this ran on one project

On a multi-storey office building in IKN, no facade consultant was involved. The facade specification had been written before we arrived.

We recalculated the structure. It found material sitting where the load did not call for it, and not enough of it where the wind load at that height did. Reducing everything uniformly would have solved the cost problem and left the safety one.

We took those calculations to the architects as a technical presentation. They adopted the systems we proposed, and we worked the specification changes through with them until the figure met the budget.

One thing made that possible: we were involved while the specification could still change. Three months later, with shop drawings approved and profiles ordered, the same calculations would have been a memo.

See the project on the Projects page

What we will not trade

Without this line, a proposal to save money is indistinguishable from the lowest bid.

Wind load for the building's height and location. That figure comes out of the calculation, not out of a negotiation.
Water and air tightness at the level agreed for the project.
The structural performance of the joints and of the anchorage back to the building.
Anything that would require part of the facade to be taken apart to repair later.

If the only way to reach your number is through one of those, we will say so, and explain what it would mean. That is part of the work you are paying for.

Questions we get asked

Most come from owners and project teams whose tender has just come back over budget.

What is Value Engineering on a facade?: It is finding a different arrangement of the system that meets the same performance targets for less money. The wind load, water tightness, thermal value, and appearance targets all stay, and the work goes into finding a cheaper route to them. It differs from cost cutting, which lowers the target so the price fits.
At what stage is Value Engineering most effective?: As early as possible, and in practice between schematic and detailed design. While the system, module, and glass make-up are still unfixed, changing them costs almost nothing. Once shop drawings are approved and material is ordered, the cost of change starts eating the saving.
What is the difference between Value Engineering and reducing the specification?: Value Engineering keeps the target and changes the method. Reducing the specification keeps the method and changes the target. Both produce a lower tender figure, but only the first hands over a facade that performs as promised.
How much can be saved?: It depends entirely on how early we are involved and how far the initial design sits from optimal. We do not quote a percentage before seeing your drawings, because a number given without a calculation behind it becomes a promise somebody else has to keep on site.
Does Value Engineering delay a project?: During design, no. The review runs alongside design work that is happening anyway. What does delay a project is the opposite: discovering the facade is over budget after shop drawings are approved, and having to draw it again.

Our core team has spent decades calculating and installing high-rise facades.

Facade over budget, with the design not yet locked?

Discuss your project See curtain wall Read the price article