Value
Analysis - VA
Value Analysis is the most efficient method to cost
optimize a design. By understanding the product cost in detail, the product
demands and the way they affect the cost, the team will find the realistic and
feasible ways to modify the design.
The method provides a quick and effective way
of evaluating the suggested actions in order to prepare them for direct entry
into the implementation organization.
It is often said to originate from General Electric in the 1940ies. Around
1970 it had a renaissance resulting in a lot of VA education, but the actual use
of the method still was low. At the end of the 1980ies the automotive
industry took up VA as a method for structured review of their designs and
supplier interaction.
From
start the practical performance of a VA was time consuming and
required long breaks where the cross-functional team was idle as the facilitator
manually calculated spread sheets and plotted charts. This is probably the
reason the method did not get widely used.
onTrack automated the process in 1993, enabling for
instance General Motors Europe to use only two days instead of previously four.
This dramatically increased the practical possibilities to gather the team to
perform a VA workshop.
onTrack probably has the most experienced VA
facilitators when it comes to handling the process in general but also the
supplier/customer interaction in specific.
VA
project
These are the typical steps when there is a customer buying
products or services from a supplier. If the studied cost is all internal some
of the steps are omitted.
 | Product or service selection
|
| Resources
and agreements
-Secure internal resources
-Producer agreement to do VA, share detailed cost data and how to split
savings and investments
-Secure producer resources
|
| Workshop
preparation (by facilitator and producer)
-Process mapping
-Product calculus reflecting this
|
| Value
Analysis workshop (full cross-functional team)
-Process walk (following the prepared process
map)
-Current cost (reviewing the prepared CSU)
-Function Analysis (understanding the "must and must not's of the
product)
-Function Cost Analysis (addressing each cost to a function/cost driver to
understand how to affect the cost)
-Idea generation (by using the new knowledge and the team input)
-Idea filtering/evaluation/preparation (to make the first cross-functional
evaluation on potential, investment, quality, time etc)
|
| Implementation of feasible ideas, documentation of rejected
|
| New price in accordance with initial agreement
|
