First of all I have to excuse that there was no new articles posted for the last view months. Corona did also impact us and home schooling, parallel work etc. did impact us as well and there was almost no time for any other activities. Now, as the situation has relaxed, you can expect again some insights in modern procurement engineering and cost / value engineering approaches.
Today I want to share some thoughts why „product disassembly“ is an important lever in the design to value process and how you can use it to generate a competitive advantage. So, why should you do product disassembly?
By disassembling competitor’s products you can acquire and extract manufacturing or design information. These information can be used to challenge your existing design or design concepts and should then be used to improve it.
The product disassembly approach can be separated in 6 steps:
- Review the overall competing product and identify the key drivers regarding cost and competitive advantage.
- Buy the identified parts.
- Disassemble these parts. It is very important to gather as much as possible information regarding the assembly / manufacturing process and the used materials.
- Develop a consolidated manufacturing plan with the gathered information. Identify components with highest value add, smart assembly/manufacturing methods used, and the selected materials with possible alternatives.
- Do a comparison with your current design / design concept. Work out the major differences and identify the best practice regarding manufacturing process and form / fit / function of components.
- Summarize and highlight where the competitor generates competitive advantages in the manufacturing process or where superior designs for manufacturing are applied. Show first ideas how these ideas / solutions can be used to improve current designs.
Key takeaway: Product disassembly allows you to get insights how competitors generate competitive advantages through smart manufacturing / assembly approaches as well where superior design solutions are applied.
I like your idea to review a competing product completely and identify what makes it cost the amount it does. That way you can work with some product engineers to come up with something better. If you can get a better product that costs less than you’ll be at an advantage.