Evaluating to what extent a component or building system should be produced offsite is inadequate within the industry. The potential benefits of off-site production (OSP) are commonly cited when justifying an OSP approach, yet holistic and methodical assessments of the applicability and overall benefit of these solutions, to a particular project, have been found to be deficient. Common methods of evaluation simply take material, labour and transportation costs into account when comparing various options, often disregarding other cost-related items such as site facilities, crane use and rectification of works. These cost factors are usually buried within the nebulous preliminaries figure, with little reference to the building approach taken.Further, softer issues such as health and safety, effects on management and process benefits are either implicit or disregarded within these comparison exercises. Yet it is demonstrated that these issues are some of the most significant benefits of OSP. A series of case studies demonstrated that evaluation focus is almost solely on direct material and labour costs of components, without explicit regard for the wider cost or soft issue implications of OSP on a project. The paper argues that until evaluation is more holistic and value-based rather than cost-based, OSP uptake in construction will be slow. (204 words)

Target Costing is an effective management technique that has been used in manufacturing for decades to achieve cost predictability during new products development. Adoption of this technique promises benefits for the construction industry as it struggles to raise the number of successful outcomes and certainty of project delivery in terms of cost, quality and time. Target Value Design is a management approach that takes the best features of Target Costing and adapts them to the peculiarities of construction. In this paper the concept of Target Value Design is introduced based on the results of action research carried out on 12 construction projects in the USA. It has been shown that systemic application of Target Value Design leads to significant improvement of project performance -the final cost of projects was on average 15% less than market cost. The construction industry already has approaches that have similarities with elements of the Target Value Design process or uses the same terminology, e.g. Partnering and Target Cost Contracts, Cost planning, etc. Following an exploration of the similarities and differences Target Value Design is positioned as a form of Target Costing for construction that offers a more reliable route to successful projects outcomes.Keywords: target cost, lean construction, cost planning, target value design. IntroductionTarget Costing (TC) appeared in the manufacturing industry in the early 1930s (Feil et al., 2004) and has proved to be a powerful strategic instrument for management and profit planning (Cooper and Kaplan, 1999). Since then it has been used in manufacturing to achieve cost predictability during new product development so that new products and services both meet market determined price and provide financial returns. The main principle of Target Costing is to make cost and value drive the design process instead of calculating the cost after design is complete.Similarity in manufacturing product development and construction project delivery processes opens an opportunity for Target Costing in construction. However in spite of potential benefits there is no evidence of this practice being taken up by the industry of Europe or the USA. In Japan about 15% of construction companies use Target Costing from manufacturing (Jacomit et al., 2008). Academic literature provides only scarce reports on theoretical and practical issues of the method (Nicolini, 2000;Pennanen et al., 2010;Knott, 1996).Insights into the adaptation of the manufacturing Target Costing method to the project-based environment of construction can be drawn directly from 12 practical cases of Target Value Design (TVD). TVD takes a view of construction as a complex system which includes project definition, design and construction stages. It correlates closely with lean thinking in design and construction.Many construction cost and project management practices already use "target costing" terminology or repeat TVD in some part of the process. "Target costing" stands for a range of techniques and methods applied ...

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Offsite production (OSP) has been promoted as one of the solutions to the industry's performance problems. Numerous works have demonstrated the possible benefits from adopting such approaches to construction projects, yet uptake has been slow. Addressing these concerns a series of factors were identified that affect the use of OSP within construction projects. From these factors a pattern emerged in which some factors drove OSP adoption, whilst others constrained its implementation. These constraints were investigated further using a questionnaire survey that was sent to all major stakeholders, ranging from clients through to end manufacturers. The extent to which the constraints inhibit the use of OSP were ascertained, scored and ranked. Four broad constraint themes emerged from the findings, namely process, value, supply-chain and knowledge constraints. A model illustrating the relationship between the four themes provides further insight into the constraints to OSP uptake. The authors further suggest that a broader understanding of the constraints is required, arguing that while OSP can contribute to change in the industry, it itself depends on change in order to be widely adopted.

Confining the development of the project brief to a certain stage hinders the interaction between the client and the designer. In addition, it inhibits the incorporation of the influential internal and external factors that may affect the project. In spite of the frequently adverse impact of change orders on project cost, time and quality, literature review and case studies showed that client organisations continue to use change orders to achieve their expectations and enhance their projects' performance principally because current construction management process instills an expectation that, change after a specified point is somehow outside the project brief rather than part of the ongoing development of that brief. This paper introduces the concept of dynamic brief development (DBD), a process that facilitates client satisfaction, meets the need to adapt to the brief developing factors for the benefit of the project and fulfils the desire to manage project change orders. In this paper, the need, aims and principles of the concept of DBD are explained and the factors driving brief development are identified. In addition, the rationale behind each factor is given and the case study sampling method is described.