The Hindu Business Line : `Imbibe value engineering in design and construction'

Mr Ashok Pandit (back), National President, and Mr Ranjan Dasgupta, past President of Indian Value Engineering Society (INVEST), in Kolkata on Monday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata , Dec. 19

FOR substantial savings to accrue to Indian corporates, it would be imperative to imbibe value engineering in design and construction, as has been done in the manufacturing arena, according to the Indian Value Engineering Society (INVEST).

Speaking to newspersons on the eve of the 21st National Conference of INVEST here, Mr K.N. Mishra, Chairman of INVEST - Eastern Zonal Council, said that, since its formation in 1977, INVEST has been propagating and disseminating information on value engineering, which was a proven tool for eliminating unnecessary costs without compromising on quality, performance or reliability of part, product, process, system and services.

Through its faculty of Certified Value Specialists, INVEST offers its expertise to all companies which seek performance excellence by adopting the continuous improvement initiative.

Mr Mishra said that, as a thumb rule, 30 per cent of the manufacturing cost in any company could be reduced by value engineering over a period of time. Three years ago, Tata Steel's savings on account of value engineering was three per cent of its turnover. He cited the instance of Tata Motors, which would save an estimated Rs 120 crore in 2005-06 on account of value engineering.

Similarly, Maruti Udyog Ltd saved Rs 44 crore in 2003-04 and L&T Rs 20 crore in 2004-05 on account of value engineering.

According to him, 90 per cent of the value engineering in India was confined to the manufacturing sector. In contrast, in the western world, 90 per cent of value engineering was in design and construction. "In India, we need to take value engineering from manufacturing to design and construction for attaining greater benefits".

As part of its strategy to spread awareness on value engineering, INVEST has forged linkages with technical institutes, such as Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, and National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

The theme for this year's National Conference is "Winning strategy through value engineering". Corporates such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, The Tinplate Company of India Ltd, L&T, Maruti Udyog Ltd, TCS, Wipro and Siemens Information Systems, among others, are participating in the two-day conference that began here on Monday.