CONFERENCE PAPER

1. Formatting Instruction*
Syafiq Z., Herbert L.
Abstract: Internationally, Value Management (VM) is a widely-known practice tool which brings a different kind of aspect that can help
with the raising demand of clients on improving value in construction projects. Despite Value Management being introduced in the
Bruneian construction industry, the application of this management approach is still not as well known and is not applied to its full
potential. So, the research study aims to identify the problem and solition factors of Value Management. This research study furthermore
aims to understand how the design team cogitates Value Management in Bruneian construction industry. As this research is implementing
quantitative research technique, a questionnaire survey is conducted with a total of 233 questionnaires distributed to professionals in the
design team, namely, architects, structural engineers, M&E engineers, and quantity surveyors, available in Brunei Darussalam. Data
collected is analysed with Average Index (AI) analysis system. The outcome of the research shows that “Lack of local VM guidelines, and
standards” are identified as the main reason why Value Management is not widely used and “Adequate training” as the main significant
solution for VM. It is revealed that most respondents considers that Value Management is not encouragingly enough to be implemented
with its application still in doubt, which suggests that many of the respondents agree that it should be developed first and foremost.
Key words: Value Management, Bruneian Construction Industry, Problems, Solutions, Perception.
1. INTRODUCTION
Value Management is characterized as a thorough, orderly and
creative philosophy with multi-disciplinary approach to accomplish
better quality and cost improvement for facilities, projects,
products, systems and administrations without giving up the
required performance (Che Mat, M.M 2004). It is vital to the
success of projects as it gives a rationale for enhancing value for
money in construction (Ashworth & Hogg 2000). Value
Management involves representatives of key stakeholders in a
facilitated workshop (New South Wales Department of Public
Works and Services 1997). Ordinarily, there seems to be divided
efforts by the architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, project
managers, owners and clients in understanding the proposed
projects. In most cases the parties involved in the planning and
design stage tend to work with a silo mentality where they share
common tasks but are unlikely to share ideas with other groups.
Value Management is a very useful tool that can eliminate this kind

2. of mentality where parties work on a common goal by
implementing a structured methodology. Currently in the
construction industry, the majority of the customers are concerned
with attaining value for money in their construction projects. In
response to this demand, a number of companies claim to offer VM
as a service, however there is a misperception of what encompasses
the VM with some commentators going as far as questioning
whether VM differ from the established produce of cost
management (Green, 1992). VM is hardly applied in Southeast
Asia construction industry (Cheah and Ting, 2005). It is still in its
infancy and has not been well established (Jaapar et al., 2009; Li
and Ma, 2012). Despite Value Management being introduced in the
Bruneian construction industry in 1999-2000 when Mohd Mazlan
Che Mat came to disseminate the knowledge (Che Mat, M.M
2004), the application of this management approach is still not as
well known and is not applied to its full potential. Therefore, there
is a need to study the perception of how the design team considers
Value Management in the Brunei Darussalam construction industry
with the support analysis of understanding the problems of why it
is not implemented and its solutions.
The study aims to achieve the following objectives:
i) To investigate why value management is not widely
used in the Bruneian construction industry.
ii) To explore the solutions of implementing value
management.
iii) To identify the design team’s perception towards
value management in Brunei Darussalam.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Value Management
Kelly, Male and Graham (2015) define VM as “a philosophy, a set
of principles, and a formal, structured, value-based management
methodology for improving organisational decision-making”. It is
a study that assists on maximizing the functional value of the
project under study by handling its development from the concept
which is the early stages to its completion by accessing its value
system.
2.2 Phases of Value Management
Kelly et al. (2015) presented the development of value
studies in three phases:
Phase 1 – The analysis of existing manufactured
components with the aim of providing those functions
satisfied by the component at the least cost.
Phase 2 – A development of the process of analysis to
include a study of components during their design to ensure
that when manufactured they precisely satisfy their requited
functions at the required quality and at the least cost.
Phase 3 – This brought about a significant change where the
focus was not just on the component but on entire projects
for the satisfaction of an organisational or business strategy
through manufactured products, services and the optimal
development of built assets in the built environment.
2.3 Benefits of VM
The benefits of VM exercise are the maximum when implemented
at the start of the project, particularly if it's applied during
conceptual development and initial design stages (Kelly et al.,
2015). There are many benefits and it can be identified as three
common factors:
1.The improvement of Concept Briefing
2. Multi-discipline team
3. Elimination of Unncessary Cost
2.4 Problems of VM
The general claims of the success of VM in financial terms suggest
that for a VM fee of 1%, a 10% to 15% cost saving can be
achieved. It is hard to imagine that practitioners and clients would
not use VM, in the belief that this level of result could be attained
(Ashworth and Hogg, 2007). In recent studies there are various
factors identified as to why VM is not widely used, namely:
1. Lack of Knowledge
2. Resistance to Change
3. Lack of Experience
4. Too expensive to carry out VM
5. Poor facilitation skills
6. Insufficient amount of time to implement VM
7. Lack of VM experts
8. Lack of local VM guidelines, standards and
specifications
9. Lack of commitment / support
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3. 10. Lack of Awareness
2.5 Solutions of VM
It is important to know that there are solutions or recommendations
of the application of VM in the construction industry as it provides
an incentive to the client and design team to strategically tackle the
problems of VM application and thus able to implement VM to its
full potential. The solutions identiied from recent studies are as
listed below:
1. Careful selection of VM team
2. Local Guideliens for VM, better standardization
3. Provide incentive clause
4. Conference and Seminar
5. Institutional Publications, Websites
6. Early decision making
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The table above is the conceptual framework of this study. The
population is regarded as the researcher’s limitation to consider
having all the parties involved in the study. Hence, the design team
is the ‘sample’ referring as the small sub-group of people in the
construction industry that the researcher chose for the study. The
population size for architects, quantity surveyors and engineers is
identified in reference to Pertubuhan Ukur Jurutera & Arkitek
(PUJA), (PUJA Brunei, 2017). There are a total of approximately
64 architects, 72 quantity surveyors, and 167 engineers. By
adapting to this formula, the sample size is identified with 233
questionnaires distributed to the design team. A web-based
questionnaire (Google form) is implemented for this research,
located on a host site (Google) where the respondents are able to
approach it through the website with computers and also mobile
phones. The data collected from the questionnaire is analysed by
using Average Index (AI) analysis:
Where,
x1 = Number of respondents for Strongly Disagree / Not Significant
x2 = Number of respondents for Disagree / Slightly Significant
x3 = Number of respondents for Slightly Agree / Moderately Significant
x4 = Number of respondents for Agree / Significant
x5 = Number of respondents for Strongly Agree / Very Significant
N = Represent the total number of respondents
AVERAGE INDEX LEVEL OF AGREEMENT LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE
0.00≤Average value≥1.50 Strongly Disagree Not Significant
1.50 Average value 2.50 Disagree Slightly Significant
2.50 Average value 3.50 Slightly Agree Moderately Significant
3.50 Average value 4.50 Agree Significant
4.50 Average value 5.00 Strongly Agree Very Significant
The classification of rating scales can be classified in the table
below:
The structure of the questionnaire begins with section A which is
the demographic profile, followed by three other sections
representing the three research objectives in this study. In section
A, background information regarding the research and information
on participants should be provided which includes the aim of the
questionnaire, confidentiality and voluntary responses
(Denscombe, 2010). The use of close-ended questions is adopted
using the Likert scale approach. Additionally, a single multiple-
choice question located in section B is adopted to identify an
individual’s own opinion on the most significant factor of why VM
is not widely used. Respondents are given an ordinal scale of 1 to 5
which signifies the level of agreement from “Strongly Disagree” to
“Strongly Agree” in section B and D. Section C also uses an
ordinal scale of 1 to 5 but representing the level of significance
which ranges from “Not Significant” to “Very Significant”.
4. DATA ANALYSIS


4. The data collected is analysed in the form of charts, graphs and
tables. A total of 72 responses are obtained, which is 31% of
response rate. In Section A, it is identified that a majority of the
respondents have practiced Value Management (65.3%) in which
their feedback on its practice is identified with 66% of them had
successful practices but 25.5% have had unsuccessful practices. It
is considered that the respondents may have only known VM in
general.
In Section B, the top five rankings of why VM is not widely used
are identified as: (1) Lack of local VM guidelines, standards and
specifications, (2) Lack of Experience, (3) Lack of VM experts, (4)
Lack of Awareness, (5) Resistance to change. Lack of local VM
guidelines, standards and specifications ranked first through which
they agree that practical guidelines for implementing VM are
needed because not all practitioners are familiar with VM when
first attempting to implement it. A small question in the
questionnaire which requires the respondents to choose one factor
that they think is the underlying problem to VM is identified where
Lack of Knowledge is ranked highest but with a low percentage of
17.2% which shows that other respondents agree on other factors
as well. In Section C, the top three rankings for the solutions of
VM are identified as: (1) Adequate training, (2) Conference and
Seminar, (3) Local Guidelines for VM, better standardization, (3)
Institutional Publications, Websites. In Section D, the one with the
highest average index which is 3.764 regard “This management
tool should be developed further for it to be successful” as the most
agreeable current perception of VM in Brunei.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The findings of the review and study indicate that VM is recofnised
and accepted within the Bruneiain construction industry as being
beneficial to the success of a project. However, the findings imply
that the industry is relatively inexperienced in using VM.
According to the results, it was revealed that “Lack of local VM
guidelines, standards and specifications” is recognized as the most
influential factor of why VM is not widely used with more than
half of the respondents stating a higher level of agreement. Due to
the lack of local VM guidelines, not all practitioners are familiar
with VM when first attempting to implement it. Kim et al. (2016)
and Whyte and Cammarano (2012) identified this factor as their
third highest issue affecting VM. Despite “Lack of local VM
guidelines, standards and specifications” being the most agreeable
factor with an average index of 3.944, in an opinion based
question, “Lack of Knowledge” has been identified as the most
significant factor of why VM is not widely used. This suggests that
many of the respondents, particularly to the respondents who
worked not more than 10 years, still agree on “Lack of
Knowledge” being a lingering problem in a VM practice.
Knowledge of value methodology is important to the design team,
from the perspective of actual service provision, to an appreciation
of its benefits and application when advising clients. “Adequate
training” is identified as the most significant solution. Nothing
reinforces VM more effectively than success gained thorough
practical experience of its use. Kelly et al. (2015) concluded that
clients view good practitioners as the most critical and essential in
delivering VM service. It is important for the industry owners and
industrial practitioners to have the right standards to carry out VM
among other members in its practice. This relates so much on the
findings of Whyte and Cammarano (2012) where the respondents
are conscious of applying VM but are still developing the
effectiveness of their process where it is felt that there is room for
improvement by means of additional training. Many have agreed
that VM should be developed further for it to be successful and
believe that it will take a long time for VM to be well recognized
but there will be opportunities and it will be successful in the
future. Majority of the respondents disagree that VM will not be an
essential tool in the future which shows further clarification that
they believe in the application of VM but suggests that it should be
developed first and foremost. . At the moment, VM is not
encouragingly enough to be implemented with its application still
in doubt which suggests that many of the respondents agree that it
should be developed first and foremost and furthermore believed
that it will be successful in the future.
It is suggested for future research to cover wider population of
members in the construction industry such as clients and
developers. This expansion of population sample will widen the
research findings from different professions with different
perspectives. Furthermore, open-ended survey questions or in-
depth interview are recommended for future study to enhance the
validity of the research findings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Expressing our sincere gratitude to the respondent of the research
which are the architects.Thank you for their time and patient, the
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5. research wouldn’t be complete without the contribution from them.
Also, our lecturer for Research Methodology Dr. Myzatul Aishah
Kamarazaly for providing us the knowledge about research
methodology, the learning we obtained surely help us in
understanding the process, method and skills of research.
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Construction Industry, 5(10)
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Management as a Decision-making Tool in the Design Stages
of Design and Build. Construction Projects: A Methodology
for Improved Cost Optimization. Retrieved from
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/37701/1/c37701.pdf
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Truong Luu (2016). Barriers to applying value
management in the Vietnamese construction industry.
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Stewart, R.B. (2010), Value Optimization for Project and
Performance Management , John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken,
NJ.
Whyte, A. and Cammarano, C. (2012). Value Management in
infrastructure projects in Western Australia: Techniques and
staging.
William. (2006). Types of Questions, Retrieved from
https://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/questype.php
6

7. Li, X. and Ma, W. (2012). Appraisal of value engineering
application to construction industry in China. In Y. Zhang
(ed.).
Liu, G. W., Luo, Q., Shen, Q.P., & Wu, M. (2006). The need for
Value Management in the development process of
construction projects in Chine: A Systematic Perspective.
Malla, S. (2013). Application of Value Engineering in Nepalese
Building Construction Industry. Available at:
http://professionalprojectmanagement.
blogspot.kr/2013/06/application-of-value-engineering-in.html
McGeorge, D., & Palmer, A. (2009). Construction Management:
New Directions (2nd
ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN:
1405147490
McGeorge, D., & Zou, P. X. (2012). Construction Management:
New Directions (3rd
ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN:
1118440676
N.S. Lop, M.A.M Apandi, I.F.M. Kamar, N.M. Salleh, S.Mamter,
N.A.M. Hamdam (2014). Identifying the Level of Awareness
on Value Management Practice amongst Construction
Developers. Doi:10.1051/matecconf/20141501029
Oke, A. E., & Aigbavboa, C. O. (2017). Sustainable Value
Management for Construction Projects (1st
ed.). ISBN: 978-3-
31954150-1
Oxford Business Group. (2016). The Report: Brunei Darussalam
2016. Retrieved from:
https://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/brunei-darussalam-
2016
PUJA Brunei (2017) Retrieved from http://www.puja-
brunei.org/memberships/memberlist/
Sabiu, Prof V.C. Agarwal. (2016). Minimizing the factors
Hindering the Practice of Value Management in the Nigerian
Construction Industry, 5(10)
Saifulnizam, M., & Coffey, V. (2010). Implementing Value
Management as a Decision-making Tool in the Design Stages
of Design and Build. Construction Projects: A Methodology
for Improved Cost Optimization. Retrieved from
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/37701/1/c37701.pdf
Soo-Yong Kim, Yeon-San Lee, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Van
Truong Luu (2016). Barriers to applying value
management in the Vietnamese construction industry.
Journal of Construction in Developing Countries 21(2):
55-80 https://dx.doi.org/10.21315/jcdc2016.21.2.4
Stewart, R.B. (2010), Value Optimization for Project and
Performance Management , John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken,
NJ.
Whyte, A. and Cammarano, C. (2012). Value Management in
infrastructure projects in Western Australia: Techniques and
staging.
William. (2006). Types of Questions, Retrieved from
https://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/questype.php
6