- Client
- Fit-out specialist
- Sector
- Commercial
- Scope
- Estimate, value engineering
- Contract value
- £1.8m
- Turnaround
- 6 working days
TEMPLATE CONTENT — replace before publishing. Value engineering on a 2,800 sqm office fit-out that brought a tender back under budget without cutting the specification the client cared about.
The brief
A fit-out specialist had priced the works and come in materially over the client's stated budget. Rather than shave the margin, they asked us to review the estimate and identify where cost could come out without touching the visible finishes.
The challenge
The obvious savings were all in the areas the end client had been most specific about — the reception, the meeting suite and the lighting scheme. Cutting those would have won the job and lost the relationship.
- Re-measure to confirm the overrun was real and not a measurement error
- Separate specification-driven cost from method-driven cost
- Target the second category first
- Present options with costs attached, not vague suggestions
What we did
We re-measured the M&E and partitioning packages, which is where the discrepancy turned out to sit, and produced a priced options schedule: each proposed change with its saving, its programme impact and its risk noted alongside.
The outcome
The majority of the saving came from sequencing and from a partitioning system change invisible in the finished space. The reception and meeting suite specification was untouched.
Outcome figures are placeholders. Replace with the real result, and only publish client details you have permission to use.