Weight Reduction Workshops “Saving Weight and Saving Money”

Identifying weight reduction ideas is not difficult in the engineering world today. The difficulty is implementation! Typically Product System Teams generate long lists of weight reduction roadmap ideas, but never have time to deliver. Engineers today are too busy to run dual path programs. ‘Roadmap’ ideas sit on an opportunities list until they are “out of time” and then “fall off” the list. This paper will describe a Weight Reduction Workshop process implemented at Ford Motor Company which drives weight reduction ideas into program assumptions early in the definition of a product program.

The weight reduction workshop results are:

• Weight Reduction Ideas Recommended
• Variable Cost & Investment Estimates
• Weight savings
• Cost per pound of weight saved
• Technical confidence
• Work plan for each recommended idea

Ideas are also evaluated against all the program's sub-attribute requirements to insure the design functions of the component are not compromised.

A management report-out meeting is conducted following the one day workshop. The report-out meeting is designed to secure management buy-in for implementation of the recommended weight reduction ideas.