Applying Value Engineering Concept in Project Life Cycle- Case Study: Deir El Balah Desalination Plant

Abstract

One of the most important challenges that face the people in Gaza Strip is the scarcity of natural water resources along with continuous growth of consumption level. This situation lead to a huge deficit in aquifer balance and force the authorities to look for an optimal alternative source to overcome this difficulty through seawater desalination. However, the cost of construction of desalination plants have been rapidly increasing in the last few years, this issue may refer to different reasons related to the project components and /or other factors affecting the establishment of the plant. Accordingly, it was very important to find an effective technique to explore this phenomena and reduce its effect on the cost of water production offered to beneficiaries. This was clearly presented through the application of value engineering concept. In order to practically examine the impact of applying this concept through desalination plants, an intensive survey was conducted to elaborate the most important factors affecting the establishment of the desalination plant. Moreover, several interviews were conducted with experts in the field to cross check the validity of the survey results and figure out other possible considerations The findings from this investigation was considered in applying the value engineering concept on a selected case study located in Gaza Strip : Deir El Balah desalination plant in order to examine the impact of application value Engineering on this project . Through the value engineering application process, several proposals were discussed and considered in the study, it was found that the application of the value engineering concept on the selected case study lead to direct impact in cost saving of approximately 10.33 % for this project in addition to saving of annual operational cost approximately 330,000USD. On the light of this result , it was confirmed that applying value engineering is very helpful tool for such project which will lead to significant saving in cost. Due to the limited experience in this field in Gaza Strip, its strongly recommended to have further studies in Gaza strip in this domain to reach to the optimum alternatives in implementing the value engineering in similar projects