Value Engineering : Methods and Techniques

Value Engineering
Methods and Techniques
Sudeep D’Souza
9/1/2009

Value Engineering (VE) is a method to reduce cost of a product or a process while maintaining the same quality levels. This paper deals with the methods of reducing cost through VE projects and ways means to generate VE ideas.

Why Value Engineering?
In today’s competitive market space where costs are spiralling out of control, budgets are being tightened and inflation rates are rising, there is a growing need to manage and control costs. Costs can be controlled by cutting down labour, reducing investments or selling out low production investments entities of the business. For companies who do not want to take such drastic measures, Value Engineering is a solution. Value Engineering would reduce the cost of products, boost sales and hence increase overall profits.

What is Value Engineering?
Larry Zimmerman defines Value Engineering as a management technique using a systematized approach to seek out the best functional balance between the cost, reliability and performance of a product or a project. Value Engineering was developed in 1947 just after World War II at the General Engineering Electric Company by Lawrence Miles. He was asked to find ways to produce products using fewer available materials and resources. This method was later adopted by other companies and the method spread.

How can Value Engineering be implemented?
The primary focus of a Value Engineering project is to reduce cost while keeping the level of quality of the part or the process the same. Value Engineering projects can be implemented in the following ways. Simple Smart Design (SSD): SSD is a process of redesign to reduce part count either by combining different parts of an assembly into one, or combine the functions of several parts This reduces the parts. cost of producing several different parts and can increase in quality. For eg., The cast base ring (Figure 1) had 3 parts which were welded together and had...