With the increasing demand to provide customers with a comfort-car based air-conditioning system, this paper is aimed at providing a value engineering assessment on air-conditioning based on the Brazilian customers perception of what effectively adds value to the system.
In market regions like Europe and United States, the A/C installation rate is above 90%, while in South America is still around 40%. If it becomes more affordable or its value for the customer increases, the A/C system can be a strong vehicle selling factor, specially in the warmer climate regions.
Value concept, in the value engineering analysis, is defined by the following equation:
Value itself can be defined, on a customer perspective, either by:
- I.
Keeping the cost parameter constant and increasing the performance parameter
- II.
Keeping the performance parameter constant and decreasing the cost parameter,
OR BY:
- III.
Making an overall balance of performance and cost parameters, in order to have an increase in value engineering parameter
The outcome of such methodology (being defined below) can result either in the improvement of an existing product, which is called VALUE ANALYSIS, or in a new product development replacing the existing one, which is called VALUE ENGINEERING assessment.
Value itself can be defined, on a customer perspective, either by: