On the application of value engineering in Kuwaiti housing schemes

The literature suggests that the initial applications of Value Engineering (VE) techniques could be traced back to the mid-20th century manufacturing base in the United States (US). Within the UK, 1966 witnessed the creation of the VE Association (Kelly et al., 2007), with similar progress made in Australia, Japan and China (1978) and Saudi Arabia (1980's) (Alalshikh et al., 2008). Whilst there is evidence that VE has been successfully applied in Saudi Arabian projects (Al-Sayid, 2008), applications of VE methodologies in the Emirates are sporadic, particularly in the Kuwaiti context. The absence of a clear vision, recognition of the potential importance and effectiveness of VE combined with a lack of encouragement from central government are possible explanations why this is the case (Shublaq, 2008). Kuwait's social housing provision is supplied by the Public Authority of Housing Welfare (PAHW). PAHW provides a number of housing options to potential occupiers, but evidence suggests that satisfaction levels in standard PAHW properties are low, when compared to similar arrangements elsewhere. In order to overcome the problems of low satisfaction and inadequate fitness of purpose, this paper proposes a "front-end" VE approach to housing design specification. Whilst the evidence suggests that dwellings are constructed by the government using high quality materials, problems with the design and configuration lead to occupant-driven modification immediately after handover. Through the implementation of a methodology described here, occupier involvement in house design is encouraged at the early state with the expectation that satisfaction levels will increase whilst reducing the costs incurred by both the government and end-users when properties require re-configuration. The methodology used to collect empirical data involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Data has been collected from the residents of Fahad Alahmad city in addition to professionals within PAHW. The residents included those who opted for government "readymade houses" (essentially standardised design) and those that opted for plots (in the latter option the occupants design and construct the dwelling from scratch). The data collection consisted of four distinct phases, and quantitative analysis is used to draw inferences from the data.