Engineering Value: Value Should Not be A Code Word

Language is constantly evolving. For example, the word “value” has taken on a negative connotation in recent years; a value product may be cheaper, but usually it’s of inferior quality, and is meant to be the bargain option.

On this episode of Engineering Value, a Draper, Inc. podcast, Grant Wylie, Director of Product Management for AV Structures & Solutions, sat down with host Sean Heath to discuss the way in which Draper is rehabilitating the word.

Marketing departments have not been especially kind to the word “value,” according to Wylie.

“I’ve seen some markets out there where they actually use the word ‘value’ to show that that’s their lowest quality product or their lowest priced product,” he said.

While many industries use the “value engineering” designation as a way to remove components in a cost-cutting attempt, Draper approaches engineering in the reverse way, Wylie explained.

“The way we look at it though is (that) ‘value engineering’ is basically you get what you pay for. So, we actually set out to reduce the manufacturing cost, reduce the setup time, reduce these different items, but we don’t want to take away the actual feature set of the product,” he said. “So, when we’re doing ‘value engineering,’ we’re actually looking at, ‘How do we make the product better, faster, stronger, but also maintain the same price-point or cost-point for our end-users?'”

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