VALUE ANALYSIS: Going into a Further Dimension

Value Analysis (VA), as it was originally conceived, was defined and applied as a cost cutting tool, in order to make products more competitive. That short scope was early identified as limiting further developments and applications of the concept, by its initial pathfinder, if no extra effort was made to take the concept into other levels of management and, consequently, of business. The many different and alternative applications of the concept and of its original methodology have taken many professional practitioners and scholars to theorize and apply new concepts and methods. We can find a tremendous number of different learning exercises and theoretical evolution from that work, but that has not yet answered many aspirations regarding the initial concept of value and value analysis. This paper aims at bringing a new and more comprehensive understanding to professional practitioners, scholars, trainers and students, about some major concepts and applied methodologies in the disciplines of Value Management (VM), Value Analysis (VA) and Value Engineering (VE).