The scheme involved complex pipe routes, chambers, and infrastructure layouts across 26 projects.
When the civils pricing exceeded budget, the project was at risk of entering a prolonged redesign cycle. The team needed to:
- Identify major savings quickly
- Rework layouts and routes
- Quantify changes
- Present credible revised costs to steering groups
All without pausing the programme.
Traditionally, value engineering followed a slow cycle:
- Consultants redraw revised CAD layouts
- Quantity Surveyors manually remeasure and reprice
- Updated designs are presented in static PowerPoint decks
- Stakeholders review without full spatial context
Each iteration could take 4–6 weeks.
This created a “limbo period” where the PM was waiting for drawings, waiting for take-offs, and waiting for approvals — while programme pressure continued to build.
The team stopped using static slides and started using Sensat as a live, spatial workspace:
- Visual Benchmarking: They imported the original outline designs and contractor VE options into one shared view.
- Live Sketching: Using geospatial markup tools, they drew revised pipe routes and infrastructure layouts directly onto the 3D site context.
- Instant Quantities: They used spatial measurement tools to quantify changes (lengths, areas, and volumes) instantly, bypassing the wait for manual QS take-offs.
- Rapid Costing: Measurements were exported to Excel and combined with contractor unit rates to produce internal cost estimates in hours.
- Interactive Approvals: The team used Sensat live in steering group sessions to compare design options side-by-side, giving stakeholders the clarity needed to make immediate decisions.
What previously required multiple handovers between teams was completed internally and collaboratively.
For the project delivery team, this was not just a cost exercise.
It turned a potential delivery stall into a controlled, repeatable workflow. Instead of waiting on drawings and revised estimates, the PM could lead value engineering in real time, maintain momentum, and keep the programme on track despite intense budget pressure.
Where this approach works best
This is critical for ECI phases, projects under regulatory cost pressure, or complex infrastructure schemes where rapid internal alignment is the difference between staying on track and losing months to redesign cycles.
