Exploring Value Management Practices in Regions along the Belt and Road

Value management (VM) as a decision-making approach organized by multi-disciplinary members may be used to achieve the best value of the project and satisfy the requirement of the clients in the construction projects in the Belt and Road (B&R) regions. However, most of the developing countries along the B&R regions are still lack of VM knowledge during the complicated team decision-making process. This study proposes some insightful recommendations for promoting VM to the countries along the B&R regions. In order to investigate the current VM practices and the possible challenge factors influencing the VM application, face to face semi-interviews with VM and project management experts in different countries (including, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the US and Sri Lanka) were conducted. Through the qualitative analysis, some factors of VM application related to pre-workshop (objectives setting, process identification and stakeholder), workshop (information, analysis, creativity, evaluation, development and presentation) and recommendations (awareness improvement, VM education, senior support and standard application) were extracted. The comparison of the qualitative results between those four countries showed that the US practitioners had the most experience on VM implementation and innovative VM techniques application, whilst Hong Kong and Malaysia practitioners still had rooms to be improved. VM workshops were never arranged independently, while it was just used as a cost reduction tool in Sri Lanka. Practical recommendations were put forward, including organizing various VM seminars and training, offering VM courses in college education, gaining senior supports, using SAVE standards, and building close relationships among developed and developing regions along the B&R in order to gain advanced VM techniques and promote VM properly in the construction industry.