Welcome

to the court of
Emperor
Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar

Noble men! There

is a very
important matter
before the court
today.

The raw material

price is shooting up.
The material cost of
a sword has gone up
by Rs.10 . And .
We are adding
50,000 soldiers to
our army this year.

I want to handle
this situation
without
increasing the
taxes. Please
give your
valuable
suggestions as
to how we
should face this
situation.

Why everyones
quiet?
Birbal! I am
surprised that you
too have become
silent!!

!!

??

!?

Your Majesty, I
have six ideas
which can reduce
the cost of a
sword by atleast
Rs.20 without
compromising the
functional
requirements.

!!

??

!?

!!

??

Brilliant!.
Tell us those
ideas.

!?

Part Count
Reduction

Presently,
the hilt has
7 parts.
The
proposed
design will
have 4 .

Existing Design

New Idea

7 parts

4 parts
6

Part
Commonisatio
n
For the new hilt,
instead of designing
exclusive rivets, we
can use the rivets of
daggers.

x
7

Benchmarking
When the Shah of
Persia was our Guest
last month ,
I observed that the
hilt in his sword does
not have a curved
portion. We can
design similar hilts
for our experienced
soldiers.

Existing Design

New Idea

Curved portion
8

The sheath
which houses
the blade is
made of copper
now.
We can switch
over to Alloy
steel which is
cheaper.

Alternate
Material

Copper

Steel

Sheath
Blade

Weight
Reduction

Since alloy steel is

stronger than
copper, we can
reduce the
thickness by 0.5
mm which will save
material

1.5 mm

2 mm

Sheath
Blade

10

Yield
Improvement

The curved
blade design is
yielding only 2
pieces per die. If
a straight blade
is designed, we
can extract 3
pieces per die.

2 Blades

3 Blades

11

Saheb, there is no
doubt that the
present sword
designed by you for
my Grandfathers
army is superior.
However, let us test
this new design in
our barracks.If they
pass the tests, we
will deploy them in
the battle field.

12

If the ideas pass

the test, we can
save atleast Rs.
Ten Lakhs this
year, thus serving
the purpose of
cost reduction.
13

There is an
advantage also.
I do not have to
increase the tax.

14

Your majesty. The

present design is being
used since the time of
Babur
without any failure.
We should not risk any
design change.

15

Birbal! I wonder
how you
developed these
ideas! Is there a
systematic way
by which others
can also be
trained to
generate such
ideas.

16

Yes, your Majesty.

With the help of Functional
Analysis System
Technique(FAST) any body can
generate such ideas. FAST is a
powerful tool used in Value
Engineering (VE) which is an
extremely effective system to
improve products and services
for cost and productivity
improvement.

17

If six ideas for the

sword itself can
save Rs. Ten lakhs ,
imagine how much
money we can save
on other weapons
like spears, arrows
and cannons etc.

18

Birbal! There are four divisions in my

army Infantry, Cavalry,Artillery and
Elephant brigade. I want you to teach
the engineers in each of these
divisions the application of Value
Engineering (VE), especially the
Functional Analysis System
Technique(FAST). Each division should
release Armoury Change Requests
(ACRs) for the worth of Rs.25 lakh.

19

Yes, your
Majesty.

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