7 minute read
How to Dance the VE Shuffle
By JP Bedell, SDA Lighting & Controls
A new dance craze is sweeping the lighting industry. It's called the VE shuffle. If you work in specification lighting, you've been doing the shuffle for a while now, whether you know it or not. In case you don't know, here are the steps to the VE shuffle:
1 Design with the best of intentions.
2 Designed lighting goes out to bid.
3 Designed lighting is deemed too expensive (either by the GC or the owner's rep).
(This is where the dance gets interesting. "Where did you get your pricing? Did you take into account the large quantities? I've used these fixtures before, and they weren’t that expensive!”)
4 Project is re-specified.
5 Project is re-bid.
(Steps 4 and 5 can be repeated as many times as the project timeline will allow.)
6 Bid is awarded.
(Bonus points are awarded here for last minute additional VE due to unforeseen circumstances.)
7 Lighting is installed.
This dance, as fun as it may seem, is exhausting for everyone. It is also an enormous efficiency drag on our industry.
VALUE ENGINEERING IS THE NORM NOW, NOT THE EXCEPTION
I've been writing about value engineering (VE) ever since 2020 when I presented the subject (virtually) at LightFair. In the last four years, value engineering has moved from an added annoyance to standard practice in lighting procurement. Contractors assume there is money to shave off the lighting package, and nine times out of ten, they are right.
For years, I've watched lighting designers grow increasingly frustrated with the value engineering shuffle. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is it's not going away. General contractors are hiring, either internally or subcontracting, lighting procurement professionals. The whole job description of these procurement professionals is to reduce the cost of lighting, either through renegotiation or substitution.
The good news is there are steps you can follow to take the VE shuffle from exhausting dance marathon to the Electric Slide at your cousin's wedding. You don't want to do it, but you get out there and follow the steps.
A (SHORT) VE STORY
One of my clients recently designed a catenary lighting system. When the poles came in more costly than expected, ownership balked. The lighting designer was asked to provide VE alternates. They came to me and my factory. Our answer was to stay with the specified manufacturer but reduce cost by removing different elements of the pole design – a simplified shape, no internal light strip, no metal accents, etc. The options read like a fast food menu and were easy for the owner to understand. After this relatively quick effort, ownership ultimately approved the original design because it was their vision, and their cost saving methods would have wrecked that vision.
This very simple little story is an example of how to dance the dance as best you can, and within it lie lessons for how to master the VE shuffle.
REMEMBER YOUR OWNER HAS MONEY – DESIGN AMAZING THINGS
A company will lease a tremendous amount of square footage of prime Manhattan real estate and then force everyone on the construction team to work overtime, shaving what amounts to a rounding error in their annual balance sheet off the project. Design amazing things where you can, not just because that's why you got into this business, but because amazing treatments don't get value engineered.
If, for example, you are laying out 4" 1,100 lumen downlights in 3500K in an evenly spaced grid with an overlap flange for an open office, you are writing a specification that's a prime target for substitution. If, on the other hand, you've sold your client on a complex layering of indirect, accent, and decorative lighting, you have a better chance of holding on to the specifications. Sell them on a vision.
ENGAGE YOUR REPS
Designers have grown increasingly reticent to discuss their projects with their reps for fear of substitutions or alternate proposals. This gets it exactly backward.
As a spec rep, I want to help you make extraordinary things happen. That's why I got into this side of the business. I could do an entire piece on specification reps versus package reps, but that's a story for another day. For our purposes here, suffice to say that spec reps are motivated differently than package reps, and the earlier your spec rep is involved, the easier it is to defend your spec. Packaging is very common, but it's not inevitable. Engaging your spec reps early, even if it's not a local project, allows them to communicate with the factories and advise a project is coming, let them know the rough size of the project and allow economies of scale to go to work. If a rep in your territory uses a specification as a chance to sell you on something, remember, they don't have to be your rep anymore.
PUSH THE REPS AND FACTORIES TO HELP YOU VE
In my catenary example above, we didn't go down the road of alternative manufacturers or new treatments. Most spec grade manufacturers these days know how common value engineering is and have updated their offering to include "good, better, best" scenarios. Some manufacturers are good at spelling out the compromises within their offering. For others, it's convoluted.
This is where good reps and good factory people can make a designer's life much easier. It's not your job to know how to take the cost out of a desired luminaire. Let your reps do their job. We can make the compromises dead simple to understand so when VE is proposed, owners know what they are trading.
REQUEST SPECIFIER BUDGET PRICING
Knowledge is power, and when it comes to value engineering, too many designers go into the discussion willfully ignorant. Any good specification rep will be able to provide you with specifier budget pricing. This is the best way to arm yourself against unnecessary value engineering. I cannot imagine sitting on a call with contractors and owner's reps, not knowing the costs of the luminaires I've chosen.
Too often designers are forced to justify costs that have become incredibly inflated. They inflate for all kinds of reasons, some legitimate and some less so. Being armed with the real pricing of the fixtures specified allows you as a designer to push back and say, "We were provided with a cost of xx dollars per foot. Even with markups, we should be within budget."
This is a conversation many designers don't want to be a part of, but it is incredibly powerful to be able to speak to the cost of the design. It reflects to the owner (or their rep) that you have already thought of the cost of the design and have all of the owner's interest in mind.
VE SHUFFLE, THE DANCE OF LOVE?
While no one wants to go through VE, there's a positive spin. Value engineering is getting everyone to think more about how lighting is priced and procured. The more it is discussed at the outset, the more we can talk about quality lighting and what it costs, this forced education will, over time, help designers keep more of their design intent. We're educating customers, one project at a time.
