Reducing Process Costs with Lean, Six Sigma, and Value Engineering Techniques

A company with effective cost reduction activities in place will be better positioned to adapt to shifting economic conditions. In fact, it can make the difference between organizations that thrive and those that simply survive during times of economic uncertainty. Reducing Process Costs with Lean, Six Sigma, and Value Engineering Techniques covers the methods and techniques currently available for lowering the costs of products, processes, and services.

Describing why cost reductions can be just as powerful as revenue increases, the book arms readers with the understanding required to select the best solution for their company?s culture and capabilities. It emphasizes home-grown techniques that do not require the implementation of any new methodologies?making it easy to apply them in any organization.

The authors explain how to reduce costs through traditional Lean methods and Lean Six Sigma. They also present Six Sigma cost savings techniques from Manufacturing Six Sigma, Services Six Sigma, and Design for Six Sigma. The book also presents optimization techniques from operations research methods, design experiment, and engineering process control.

Helping you determine what your organization?s value proposition is, the text explains how to improve on the existing proposition and suggests a range of tools to help you achieve this goal. The tools and techniques presented vary in complexity and capability and most chapters include a rubric at the start to help readers determine the levels of competence required to perform the tasks outlined in that chapter.

Introduction. Saving Money with Homegrown Ideas. Arbitrary Cost Down Approach. Rubric for Costing Down. The Isuzu Approach to Tear Downs. The DOD Approach. Classical Value Analysis / Value Engineering Techniques. Classical Techniques. Saving Money with Six Sigma Projects. Saving Money with Lean Manufacturing. Saving Money with Optimization. Regaining Money with Cost Recovery. Other Methods. Finding Cost Reductions. When Cost Improvement Goes Wrong.

Kim H. Pries & Jon M. Quigley
Co-Founders, Value Transformation, LLC