Value engineering also known as financial engineering was developed in the 1960’s as a response to the increasing cost of manufacturing and construction. Based on the economic climate, the response to cost-benefit analysis changes frequently. In 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency promoted a program to implement the use of value engineering through construction grants. Although profit margins are always in consideration when proceeding with construction plans, value engineering has been utilized more frequently now with the weakened economy. Value engineering characterizes all aspects of any engineering process in order to evaluate its worth, performance and reliability in the field of practice. This process allows for a cumulative savings of capital through time assuming costs stay relatively constant.

Although there exists a dire need for this sort of evaluation, research from previous years have shown that it is not being directly implemented in all fields. Reasoning for not incorporating this practice includes factors such as not knowing what value engineering entails, means or not understanding the theory behind value engineering. In 1998, a study was conducted in Hong Kong researching the implementation of value engineering to different industries around the country. It is estimated that only about 38% of managers that responded to this research have heard of the term value engineering but only 71% of those thought they had a clear understanding of the term. With Hong Kong being one of the most densely populated areas in the world, ranked 25th worldwide in nominal per capita and experiencing a growth of more than 7% in GDP, its economy consists of more than 90% service and approximately 10% industry. Cost saving plans through value engineering can save Hong Kong’s $325 billion GDP capital costs in the magnitude of hundreds of millions. The consistency in these fields has proven the most efficient as what is applied to a field can sometimes be used for related fields. For example, an implemented routine for the analysis of wastewater was applied to a laboratory in a water treatment plant by interchanging unnecessary or repetitive processes with those that were actually valuable for safety and public disclosure.

It is believed that value engineering has not been utilized based on a view of redundancy to cost saving techniques normally implemented by plant managers. Furthermore, most managers were not enthralled by the idea of having to spend time and capital in implementing a new system to their engineering and manufacturing techniques. Many find that their team would have to be retrained; an “unnecessary” amount of time is going to be further added on, and more employees would have to be hired to perform these tasks. These ideas though have been disproven with further research.

It has become apparent that major engineering firms around the world have had to overcome the fear and utilize value engineering in their daily practice. Most engineering projects come to halts due to factors that value engineering emphasizes during preparations for a project such as the following: lack of time, lack of information, lack of a key idea, lack of budget, temporary decisions that become permanent, habitats, and politics. Value engineers are trained to take into account schedule constraints that may add any additional cost as well as