A structured process for reviewing a design specifically to find ways to reduce cost while still meeting the project's required function and quality - substituting materials, simplifying a detail, questioning whether a specified system is actually necessary - as distinct from simply "cutting corners," which sacrifices quality to save money.

BIM makes value engineering far more informed: because a model carries live QTO and cost data, a proposed substitution's actual cost and quantity impact can be tested in the model directly, rather than estimated roughly on paper, and the impact of a change ripples visibly through every schedule and drawing that depends on it.