Savings effort recognized: State Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Johnny Bradberry, right, displays the agency’s 2005 Value Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award from the Federal Highway Administration. With the Secretary are, from left, Chief Engineer Bill Temple and Project Development Engineer Richard Savoie.

BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has earned federal recognition for a process that saved the state $29.4 million in road project costs in 2004.

The Federal Highway Administration presented the 2005 Value Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award to Louisiana DOTD at the Value Engineering Conference sponsored recently by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, in San Antonio.

DOTD Secretary Johnny B. Bradberry said, “We are gratified to receive federal recognition for such an important effort. The award, and the money saved, means we’re certainly moving in the right direction in the department’s push for efficiency.”

Bill Farr, program operations manager for FHWA’s Louisiana Division, applauded the department’s effort that led to the award. “Louisiana DOTD’s program is now one of the nation’s best, and it has saved the state millions of dollars in state and federal-aid funding,” he said.

Value Engineering is the technique of examining options to design and construct road and bridge projects more efficiently.

Louisiana DOTD won in the Category 3 program level, for agencies that used VE on projects with cumulative project totals between $100 million and $499 million.

The FHWA competition uses information from each state’s annual reports on its progress with the federally mandated process to rank states in the competition. Criteria include the number of VE studies performed and the amount of money saved.

Richard Savoie, project development engineer at DOTD, said the $29.4 million in savings came from 30 implemented recommendations.

Savoie said teams of eight to 10 persons were assembled to both learn the process and evaluate a designated project for 40 hours over 4.5 days. In addition to looking at plans on paper, the group also made a visual inspection of the project site.

“We getting double-bang for the buck by doing our training and the studies at the same time,” said Savoie.

“And the process is really catching on. Team members come in apprehensive on Monday, but by their presentations Friday, they’re really fired up because you can see that you’re adding value,” Savoie added.

Photo available: To have a digital copy of the related photo e-mailed to you, please call DOTD Public Information at the number above or send e-mail request to CleoJAllen@dotd.louisiana.gov.

Cutline:

Savings effort recognized:  State Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Johnny Bradberry, right, displays the agency’s 2005 Value Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award from the Federal Highway Administration. With the Secretary are, from left, Chief Engineer Bill Temple and Project Development Engineer Richard Savoie.