VALUE ENGINEERING / VALUE ANALYSIS

To stay competitive, you have to focus on costs. Value Engineering is a proven way to significantly reduce costs – particularly the material costs that are often embedded in product design.

At TCA, we’ve developed a function-oriented, systematic team approach to Value Engineering. The result is improved value in your product, process, system, service, and organization — and the results often provide payback of more than 10:1.

Since 1984, we have worked with organizations to enhance performance and accelerate growth. Our Value Engineering Services are just one more way we’re helping to build and strengthen some of America’s best companies.

Companies from a wide cross-section of industries have used Value Engineering to reduce costs for many applications, including:

• Existing product designs
• New product development
• Process improvement
• Project cost control
• Administrative organization
• Information systems

What Is Value Engineering?

Value Engineering is all about reducing costs, improving design, and enhancing quality. The bulk of the cost of a manufactured product is not in labor or overhead – it’s in the material. And because design features drive material costs, a comprehensive cost reduction effort must attack the material cost embedded in the product design. This is the domain of Value Engineering.

Material: The Bulk of Manufactured Product Cost

Lean and Six Sigma address labor and variable overhead – but they have little or no impact on the single largest cost: material!

However, most companies do not have in-house Value Engineering capabilities. And unlike other continuous improvement tools, Value Engineering is too difficult for non-specialists to learn and apply.

TCA Can Help

TCA’s certified value specialists have years of technical experience to help you match functions with customer requirements, reduce costs, increase profits, improve design, enhance quality, and expand market share. Together, we’ll give your company a competitive advantage.

A Proven Approach Delivers Results

At TCA, we use 3 toolkits when implementing the Value Engineering process to identify and target areas to reduce costs:

• 6-Step Value Engineering Job Plan

This methodology, established by the Society of American Value Engineers, is applied systematically by our certified value specialists to every project – ensuring that fact finding and creative efforts result in dramatic cost reductions. We identify all major cost reduction opportunities for aggressive implementation.

• Function Analysis Systems Technique (FAST) Model

Using the FAST model, we identify the functions performed by various components in a product or system, calculate the cost of performing each function, and seek lower cost alternatives. Experienced TCA engineers work collaboratively with your team to perform a comprehensive FAST analysis and generate a wide range of cost reduction ideas.

• Function/Cost Diagrams

This diagram identifies major cost reduction opportunities so it's easy to see where the remaining effort must be focused. We test the technical and economic feasibility of the team’s ideas through detailed design and prototyping, “selling” the best ideas and managing a full range of cost reduction activities.

TCA EXTREME LEAN™ EXPERTS

We've provided management consulting, technical assistance, and training programs to business and industry since 1984—helping companies set new directions centered in World Class/Lean technologies.

Our clients are applying Extreme Lean™ capabilities to increase profits, grow market share, and solidify long-term relationships with key customers.

Whatever combination of Lean, Six Sigma, Value Engineering, or Information Technology tools your company needs, TCA is skilled in leading teams to achieve creative, cost-effective solutions.