Teamwork in Value Analysis Projects: Why Cross-Functional?

Many product cost problems cannot be solved within a single department.

The design influences material, manufacturing and assembly. Supplier knowledge lies with procurement. Production knows the production constraints. Customer requirements often lie with product management, sales or service.

If these perspectives are considered one after the other instead of together, the result is local optimisation.

Value Analysis therefore deliberately relies on cross-functional teamwork.

Different Functions See Different Parts of the Problem

A development engineer, for example, looks at technical safety and functionality.

Procurement knows:

suppliers,
market prices,
alternative manufacturing processes
and procurement risks.

Production knows:

process times,
automation,
scrap,
assembly effort
and existing equipment.

Product management and sales contribute the customer’s perspective.

Only by combining this information is a holistic view possible.

A Shared Understanding Before Developing Solutions

Cross-functional collaboration means more than just inviting different people to a workshop.

The team has to develop a shared view of:

objectives,
customer requirements,
functions,
costs
and relevant opportunity areas.

first of all.

Function Analysis is particularly helpful here.

Functions do not belong to any one department. They describe what the product has to do. This creates a common language that can cross technical and organisational boundaries.

Why Facilitation Matters

Cross-functional teams have a great deal of knowledge, but also different interests.

Typical situations include:

Departments defend existing solutions.
Discussions get lost in technical details.
Hierarchy influences how ideas are evaluated.
Individual experts dominate.
Conflicts between cost, quality and engineering become personal.
The team jumps from analysis to solutions too early.

Methodical facilitation keeps the discussion focused on the task and ensures that information is brought together in a structured way.

The facilitator does not need to be the leading specialist for every component. Their role is to guide the process and make the team’s expertise usable.

External or Internal Facilitation?

Both can make sense.

Internal facilitation has advantages when the method is established in the company and experienced value analysts are available.

External facilitation can be particularly helpful:

for important pilot projects,
in conflicts between departments,
when the method is being introduced,
when a high degree of neutrality is required,
when an ambitious project objective is to be achieved,
when internal methodological experience is still lacking.

In the long term, one objective may be to build up internal expertise so that projects can increasingly be carried out independently.

Teamwork as Capability Building

A Value Analysis project produces more than technical results.

When employees work together on customer requirements, functions, costs, ideas and evaluations, they also learn the Value Analysis way of thinking.

A project can therefore also be a means of qualification.

Several documented client references for Value Coaching explicitly describe the benefits of structured facilitation and cross-functional collaboration.

VDI-MT 2807

The VDI addresses teamwork in Value Analysis and Value Management projects in VDI-MT 2807.

The current edition of December 2025 describes cross-functional teamwork as a fundamental part of such projects and is aimed at, among others, managers and project managers.

Why Value Analysis Works in Cross-Functional Teams