Value Engineering in Coastal Design

A formal procedure of value engineering can be applied to coastal design to refine a design and reduce the construction costs. Despite the relatively simple technology and materials used in coastal construction, savings of up to 25 percent in total project costs have been achieved while actually improving the performance of the design concept through value engineering. Value engineering is not equivalent to simple cost reduction, although savings are commonly achieved. Instead, value engineering is a design development process that focuses on the essential functions that must be satisfied by the design to arrive at the least-cost least-complicated, elegant solution.