Structured Idea Creation for Improving the Value of Construction Design
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 138, Issue 7
Abstract
Value engineering (VE) is an effort to increase the value of a system through a creative and organized approach. Idea generation is the most important part in a VE job plan. Although the experts in a VE team can evaluate multiple alternatives that can replace the original idea, idea generation is usually on the basis of their knowledge and experience. A structured method will help to consider different functional perspectives and to create inventive ideas that could have been missed otherwise. This paper presents a construction value engineering inventive idea support (CVE-IIS) tool for structured idea generation in construction VE. In this study, previous VE reports were analyzed to understand the pattern of proposed ideas in highway construction design. These ideas were categorized according to the rules of advanced systematic inventive thinking (ASIT) to establish an idea breakdown structure (IBS). The IBS was then used to support the generation of construction ideas using idea-generation worksheets. A case study demonstrated that the CVE-IIS can help improve the value of design functions by improving performance.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the second stage of the Brain Korea 21 Project in Division for Ubiquitous-Applied Construction of Port Logistics Infrastructure.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 138 • Issue 7 • July 2012
Pages: 841 - 853
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 29, 2010
Accepted: Sep 14, 2011
Published online: Sep 16, 2011
Published in print: Jul 1, 2012
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