ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes cost management, target costing and value engineering become more important because of the emergence of the lean enterprise. The cost management technique that is used to discipline the product design process in this manner is called target costing. Target costing focuses the creativity of the firm's product designers on developing products that satisfy customers and that can be manufactured at their target costs. The firm uses value engineering to find ways to increase functionality and quality while meeting target costs. Once the product-level target cost has been set, the designers have to find ways to design the product so it can be manufactured for that cost. The primary technique for achieving this objective is value engineering. There are four major ways to apply Value Engineering principles to product design. The ways are zero-look, first-look, and second-look value engineering, and teardown.
