New practical innovative tool for the value engineering ideation process with the oriented creativity matrix

Area of Science:

• Engineering Management
• Innovation and Creativity Studies

Background:

• Value engineering (VE) often faces challenges in the creativity stage, leading to impractical or undiscovered workable proposals.
• Implementation roadblocks impede the successful application of VE proposals, highlighting a need for improved ideation processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce an innovative tool, the Oriented Creativity Matrix (OCM), to address creativity stage shortages in value engineering.
• To enhance communication and incorporate designer considerations during the VE ideation process.

Main Methods:

• Developed the Oriented Creativity Matrix (OCM) to structure idea generation and alternative creation.
• Identified potential altering aspects for generating sub-alternatives, which are then composed into main alternatives.
• Validated the completeness of altering aspects through a questionnaire distributed to value engineering specialists.

Main Results:

• The OCM method was designed to systematically generate and compose alternatives from pre-identified alteration aspects.
• The approach ensures comprehensive coverage of potential alternatives and their performance from multiple perspectives.
• Statistical validation confirmed the completeness of the identified altering aspects for the OCM.

Conclusions:

• The Oriented Creativity Matrix (OCM) provides a structured framework to overcome limitations in the VE creativity stage.
• OCM facilitates unified efforts in idea generation, focusing on problem-solving from ascertained perspectives.
• This method improves the practicality and discoverability of workable proposals in value engineering.