Characteristics of Value Analysis Method in electrical engineering

Abstract

The Value Analysis Method provides two ways of improving a product or service: reducing the production cost and improving the performance of the product/service by identifying potential development directions.In the present paper the authors describe the characteristics of the functional analysis phase in the Value Analysis methodology for the electrical engineering products area. Also, they propose a new method for determining the importance level of a product's functions. The functions are divided into categories corresponding to the type of energy transfer between the product and the environment. This requires a double ranking method: firstly rating the categories and secondly rating the functions within each category. The method is recommended complex products with multiple functions.In order to validate the proposed method, the authors carried out a research in Romania, on a sample of 88 respondents from the academic and industrial (electrical engineering) field.

Weighted Value Analysis on the perception of various functions of electrical products

“…The questionnaire aim was to collect three categories of information: (a) the hierarchy of flameproof motor's functions within each category; (b) the hierarchy of categories and (c) socio-demographic characteristics of flameproof motor's users [2,3]. The questions of categories (a) and (b) allow computation of the functions importance for each respondent.…”

“…The sampling procedure has been based on the respondents' willingness to answer the questions. The questionnaires were sent by email to persons from the Romanian academic and industrial field, active in electrical engineering [2,3].…”

“…The results for the whole sample have shown that this function was ranked 10 (4.60%), first place being occupied by function F21 (provides the starting torque) with 7.59% [1,2]. Therefore, to see whether and how evaluation functions of the flameproof motor varies in relation to certain socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, the variation of the importance given to the functions with various socio-demographic variables was analyzed too.…”

“…The paper is structured as follows: in the first part, the methodology and results of the research are presented, highlighting the socio-demographic data; in the second part, three categories of differences related to the importance given by each respondent to the flameproof electric motor functions are examined: (1) between manufacturer and end-user, (2) between the industrial and academic field (3) between users' experience in the field of electrical machines groups.…”

“…This study is part of a complex research aimed to adapt the Value Analysis method for the Electrical Engineering field [1][2][3]. As further seen, 24 functions of the flameproof electric motor were set (Table I).…”