The concept of value engineering started in the 1940s at General Electric Co. This was during the Second World War when there was a shortage of raw materials, component parts, and skilled labor. The engineers at General Electric had to find alternative components and raw materials to ensure the continuity of the production process.
Therefore, Lawrence Miles, Harry Erlicher, Jerry Leftow, and other engineers sourced for acceptable substitutes that would reduce the production costs without compromising the functionality of the products.
What started as an accident turned into a systematic process that not only reduced the cost of production but also provided better final products or better performance. The engineers named this technique “value analysis.”
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