17. REVERSE ENGINEERING--WHEELCHAIR

A. Problem/Issue

A medium-sized wheelchair manufacturing company wanted to know how much their competitors product cost. They used some injection-molded parts in their design and had more stampings rather than brazed assemblies.

B. Analysis

The only reliable method to fix the competitors prices were to reverse engineer the wheelchair piece by piece.

C. Solution/Results

We purchased the competitor's model and began to dissasemble it into all components. We then identified as many as we could and priced them from the suppliers in the appropriate volumes. The fabricated parts were drawn and documented using small changes intended to eliminate any legal obligations. The new prints were then sent to many different suppliers and the price structure was completed. An immediate result is that they changed several manufacturing methods based on the price quotes we received. The company is now in a more competetive position today as a result of this effort.