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How to Reduce Product Cost by 15% (example)

cutter top view

Or how an already entry-level product can be even cheaper designed and manufactured, with no degradation of end-user experience. Análise de valor is the key. What is required for the customer so as for the functions … and stick to that. A full redesign project example, on a very basic, but real product, to show key concepts of the process.

 

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The chosen product is a stainless-steel cutter

Vista superior do cortador
cutter top view
Vista traseira do cortador
cutter back view

 

 

Current Design

Cortador desmontado
cutter disassembled

Including shop margin & 20% taxes, the end-user price 2€! 

This product is intended to be part of special seasonal offers in big supermarkets, “All for X€ !” manufactured, imported, and sold in big volumes.

As we will see, this product still delivers a lot for such a low price (we have seem more expensive cutters than this one, with more plastic than stainless steel, and the only metal part was thin painted black basic steel.)

Good materials

Overall, quality is very good, stainless steel for the main body as for the clip & of course only one blade sold with the product.

The packaging seems the only trade-off in this design.

btw.: while talking about packaging, having the blade of the cutter unprotected & detachable without breaking any seal is arguable (but likely longer knifes are also sold is such shops, also unprotected)

Possible Redesign

As basic specs, let’s impose some typical constraints on the redesign:

  • keep same technologies; no special investments (typical example could have been to overmold metal, to limit stainless steel)
  • at least the same quality & robustness (typical example: thinner metal sheet on the main housing or painted low-quality steel)
  • use standard cutter blade & provide x1 sample (the biggest constraint as this choice imposes some fixed price, imposes the overall size of the product so as its attachment method)

Current Bill of Materials (BOM)

Detailed to its smallest component:

        comments estimated cost
Completed assembly  -Main Body      metal sheet, stainless steel, several precise bendings 60%
  -clip sub-assembly  -clip   metal sheet, stainless steel, several bendings com um pequeno raio 12%
    -plastic strip      negligible
    -label     1%
  -blade sub-assembly -blade   standard of-the-shelf component  8%
    -knob sub-assembly -knob body plastic 5%
      -knob cover plastic  4%
      -spring AISI 302? bended 5%
  -Assembly & control     far east? 5%

 

Functional Analyse

-inter-action graph to come-

From the graph, the product has clearly 3 functional groups that cooperate together and needs to be maintained in one way or another.

  • the blade: of-the-shelf as per the specs -no change-
  • the “blade housing”: guiding the blade + protecting the hand from the rest of the blade while cutting + retracting the blase is a function
    • hollowed housing? the back of the body can indeed be hollowed to reduce metal. That would not affect too much its rigidity, gain a bit of weight and “look” more technical. Unfortunately either punched or laser cut, would complexify the process and not much bring the cost down -so a no-go solution-. Note that made of more expensive & recyclable material, the choice would have been different, like copper alloys that have their machine chips very expensive & recyclable)
    • shorter housing? the functional length is one of the blades only, as it needs to be retracted fully inside the housing, All the remaining housing length is just due to design choices, if not a waste at least a design inefficiency. This is estimated to be 20% of the housing.
  • a “blade stopper”: it can be any mechanism, as long as it permits two functions and with the blade being at various lengths in its lifetime
    • take in & out the blade
    • hold firmly the blade at different positions

note that although most products on the market solve these 2 functions with 1 sub-assembly, it could be different

 

Análise de valor do corpo principal
value analysis of the main body

From the functional analysis: the standard blade is the main component, and all is constructed around it. The “cutter” is in fact just a blade holder.

note: a different approach -out of the imposed specs above- could have been to redesign the blade, like including notches on it, or have two cutting sides …

 Brainstorming on the BOM components

  • corpo principal: parte principal e mais pesada do produto;
  • mudar o material para um mais barato seria definitivamente uma opção se o custo fosse o único objetivo.
  • Não é uma opção aqui Kaizen event could be possible directly in the assembly line, but for a limited %gain & out of the scope of this project

Innovative solutions not meeting the imposed specs

Coming from the above analysis, innovative solutions, but usable with different specs & context

with the redesign of the blade, by including notches on the blade, the blade stopper(c) can be part of the housing(b) if that one is deformable, likely plastic. If the blade has the notches

-sketch to come-

a peelable housing: a plastic housing around the blade, protecting the hand during usage. It would work as a pencil: to have a fresh tip(blade), the housing would be cut; to obtain the cheapest cutter as possible, that can still hold a standard blade and have it cut to have a fresh

-sketch to come-

Solution #1

 -sketch to come-

Solution #2 

 -sketch to come-

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Tópicos abordados: Value analysis, cost reduction, product design, manufacturing efficiency, end-user experience, redesign project, stainless steel, market analysis, functional requirements, seasonal offers, product lifecycle, supply chain optimization, design for manufacturability, user-centered design, quality assurance, market competitiveness, product innovation, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 13485, ISO 26000, and ISO 50001..

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