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There are some issues that are dealt with during a value engineering review :
1. Can we eliminate functions from the production process ? This involves a detailed review of the entire manufacturing process to see if there are any steps, such as interim quality reviews, that add no value to the product. By eliminating them, one can take their associated direct or overhead costs out of the product cost. However, these functions were originally put in for a reason, so the engineering team must be careful to develop work-around steps that eliminate one or more activities from the original set of functions.
1. Can we eliminate functions from the production process ? This involves a detailed review of the entire manufacturing process to see if there are any steps, such as interim quality reviews, that add no value to the product. By eliminating them, one can take their associated direct or overhead costs out of the product cost. However, these functions were originally put in for a reason, so the engineering team must be careful to develop work-around steps that eliminate one or more activities from the original set of functions.
2. Can we eliminate some durability or reliability ? It is possible to design an excessive degree of sturdiness into a product. For example, a vacuum cleaner can be designed to withstand a 1-ton impact, although there is only the most vanishing chance that such an impact will ever occur; designing it to withstand an impact of 100 pounds may account for 99.999% of all probable impacts, while also eliminating a great deal of structural material from the design. However, this concept can be taken too far, resulting in a visible reduction in durability or reliability, so any designs that have had their structural integrity reduced must be thoroughly tested to ensure that they meet all design standards.
3. Can we minimize the design ? This involves the creation of a design that uses fewer parts or has fewer features. This approach is based on the assumption that a minimal design is easier to manufacture and assemble. Also, with fewer parts to purchase, less procurement overhead is associated with the product. However, reducing a product to extremes, perhaps from dozens of components to just a few molded or prefabricated parts, can result in excessively high costs for these few remaining parts, since they may be so complex or custom made in nature that it would be less expensive to settle for a few extra standard parts that are more easily and cheaply obtained.
4. Can we design the product better for the manufacturing process ? Also known as design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA), this involve the creation of a product design that can be created in only a specific manner. For example, a toner cartridge for a laser printer is designed so that it can be successfully inserted into the printer only when the sides of the cartridge are correctly aligned with the printer opening; all other attempts to insert the cartridge will fail. When used for the assembly of an entire product, this approach ensures that a product is not incorrectly manufactured or assembled, which would call for a costly disassembly or (even worse) product recalls from customers who have already received defective goods.
5. Can we substitute parts ? This approach encourages the search for less expensive components or materials that can replace more expensive parts currently used in a product design. It is becoming an increasingly valid approach since new materials are being developed every year. However, sometimes the use of a different material impacts the types of materials that can be used elsewhere in the product, which may result in cost increases in these other areas, for a net increase in costs. Thus, any parts substitution must be accompanied by a review of related changes elsewhere in the design. This step is also known as component parts analysis and involves one extra activity—tracking the intentions of suppliers to continue producing parts in the future; if parts will not be available, they must be eliminated from the product design.
6. Can we combine steps ? A detailed review of all the processes associated with a product sometimes reveals that some steps can be consolidated, which may mean that one can be eliminated (as noted earlier) or that several can be accomplished by one person, rather than having people in widely disparate parts of the production process perform them. This is also known as process centering. By combining steps in this
manner, we can eliminate some of the transfer and queue time from the production process, which in turn reduces the chance that parts will be damaged during these transfers.
7. Is there a better way ? Though this step sounds rather vague, it really strikes at the core of the cost reduction issue—the other value engineering steps previously mentioned focus on incremental improvements to the existing design or production process, whereas this one is a more general attempt to start from scratch and build a new product or process that is not based in any way on preexisting ideas. Improvements resulting from this step lend to have the largest favourable impact on cost reductions but can also be the most difficult for the organization to adopt, especially if it has used other designs or systems for the production of earlier models.
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