There is a consensus that the evolution of the value analysis started in the General Electric Company (GEC) during the World War II (WWII) way back in 1941 by Lawrence D Miles(Che Mat M. M., 2002). Shortages of labour, raw materials, and component during the WWII made Mr. Miles forced to produce the product with the same function in less cost in GEC. He used a technique with the following five questions:(Miles, 1989)

  1. What is the item or service?
  2. What does it cost?
  3. What does it do?
  4. What else would do the job?
  5. What would that alternative cost?

He succeeded in developing an amazing new package of techniques. He named the package as Value Analysis

After WWII, his techniques were recognized as powerful approach to problem solving through function-based analysis. Many industries and government use the technique to save unnecessary cost without sacrificing the function and quality.

In 1954, US Navy Bureau of Ships applied the technique to cost avoidance during design, calling it Value Engineering (VE)(Younker, 2003). This is the first government organization use the techniques. As good result of using this technique, US Government endorses VE to their organization such as US Postal Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and many construction projects.

According to (Che Mat M. M., Value Management-The Way Forward, 1999), Malaysia started the technique in 1986 when Roy Barton from Canberra University, Australia introduced Value Management (VM). Even the terms are different, but the concept is similar to value engineering. In 1990, Barton made another subsequent visit and together with Mohd Mazlan Che Mat introduced Value Management Methodology to Petronas and Ministry of Defence. Later, many of industries and government use the VM.

 

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