MVF Innovation Forum

By Stephen Kirk, PhD, CVS, FSAVE, FAIA – Vice President Education, Miles Value Foundation

Each year the Miles Value Foundation (MVF) hosts an Innovation Forum at the SAVE International Value Summit. This year in Austin, the Forum focused on allocation of resources to functions. This is part of the steps in the Function Analysis Phase of VE. This Forum was a follow-up to the popular forum last year which focused on creating Function Analysis System Technique (FAST) diagrams.

Bruce Lenzer, President of MVF, and Steve Kirk, Vice President of MVF, facilitated the Forum. It began with a discussion of the purpose of the MVF which supports SAVE. Its mission is to assist in education, innovation and avocation of the value methodology started by Lawrence D. Miles. Drew Algase, Chairman of MVF, introduced the new edition of the VM Memory Jogger authored by members of the MVF. Javier Masini, Director of MVF, presented the latest SAVE “knowledge nugget” video he authored. It is a 3 minute cartoon style presentation of the Benefits of the Value Methodology. It is available on the SAVE website homepage at www.value-eng.org.

Approximately 40 people attended the lively discussion at the Forum and the hands on function analysis application to selected projects, products and processes. Lawrence D. Miles, the “Father of Value Analysis,” stated, “the customer wants a function.” People want functions, not things. Function analysis is considered the heart of the Value Methodology.

The Forum continued with a brief overview of the function analysis phase and the steps involved as follows:

• Define Functions
  • Identify Functions
  • Classify Functions
  • Organize Functions
• Allocate Resources (focus of this year’s forum)
• Prioritize Functions

These steps are graphically illustrated as Figure 1.

Participants were then divided into groups of 5-7 and assigned a project, product or process. The FAST diagram had already been completed from the MVF forum of 2017. The FAST and either a cost estimate or list of spaces was given to each team. They were then expected to assign resources (costs or space) to each function. Kirk and Lenzer gave an illustration of a function resource allocation matrix which had functions listed on each column and costs or space (in square feet) listed on the rows. By assigning a percentage of the resources to each function, a total resource (cost or space) could be determined. See Figure 2 for an illustration of the Function Resource Allocation Worksheet completed for a warehouse using square feet as the resource.

Each team was then requested to prepare a Pareto Function Resource Diagram. The one for the warehouse is shown as Figure 3. Each team presented their work to the others and highlighted what they had learned. It was a very informative and innovative forum!

Next year, the MVF will host another Innovation Forum that will focus on the Creativity Phase. Participants will be provided the function analysis work done in the previous MVF Forums and be challenged to speculate on ideas to satisfy the functions identified.

Please plan to attend the MVF Innovation Forum in Portland, Oregon at the 2019 Value Summit!