Product Workout® optimizes existing product portfolios. Working together with design experts and your team, we develop a brand-compatible, future-proof product design, reduce the number of variants through modularization and ensure comprehensive material optimization in core components through FEM simulation. What you get is lower procurement prices owing to larger batch sizes and the possibility of non-project-dependent prefabrication. The result: within months and with little effort you will have made your product portfolio more competitive, increased margins significantly (ROS usually about 10 percent higher) and generated new sales impulses through improved delivery capability.
We modernized the product design, reduced the number of variants and cut manufacturing costs for a machine manufacturer by applying a comprehensive Product Workout® program over six months. Delivered in cooperation with our partner V-Cube from Aachen, Germany.
Qualitative outcomes:
- Existing machines adopted as CAD models and transferred to new machine design
- Engineering design optimized by means of FEM
- Prefabrication degree maximized by shifting necessary customer-specific adaptations to the end of the value-creation process
- New machine lines presented for sale after four months using VR technology
Quantitative outcomes:
- Variants reduced by more than 80 percent through modularization within the product line and feature integration across the various lines
- Component weight cut by 25 percent through design optimization using FEM
- Project-specific procurement in lot size 1 bundled with batch procurement; suppliers consolidated and stockpiling approved in purchasing
- Significantly reduced manufacturing costs, e.g. more than 50 percent lower for the machine base frame, with higher fulfillment of functions and all available customer specifications maintained