Value Engineering (When You Don’t Have To)

What’s value engineering (“VE”)?

You might learn it as a euphemism for cost cutting. Like “sanitation engineer” makes “garbage collector” less negative. Regardless, “negative” is a word that many might use to describe VE anyway.

Why? Because cost cutting in exhibition projects means cutting things the team has worked hard on.

But there is another way of considering the term, and the process: in a positive light, as a way of engineering a project to get the most value out of it.

Sounds better already, right?

In my podcast interview with Exhibition Journal Managing Editor Ian Kerrigan this week, he brings up an issue of the magazine that inspired a new approach. In it, value engineering is a positive — finding the value in all parts of a project — and it transforms from a one-time event into an ongoing process.

Who wouldn’t want to regularly check to make sure your project is valuable?

Here’s the thing:
Maybe it’s time for “value engineering” to stop being a one-time negative, and become an ongoing positive.

More on that idea — and many others — in this week’s episode.

Warmly,
Jonathan