Lawrence D. Miles

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Lawrence Delos Miles (April 21, 1904 Harvard, Nebraska August 1, 1985) was an American engineer, and the creator of Value engineering. His parents were Delos Daniel Miles, Superintendent of Harvard School, and Vinetta Conkle Miles, an elementary school teacher.

Harvard, Nebraska City in Nebraska, United States

Harvard is a city in Clay County, Nebraska, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,013. It is part of the Hastings, Nebraska Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Value engineering (VE) is a systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and services by using an examination of function. Value, as defined, is the ratio of function to cost. Value can therefore be manipulated by either improving the function or reducing the cost. It is a primary tenet of value engineering that basic functions be preserved and not be reduced as a consequence of pursuing value improvements.

Contents

Life and Work

1932-1938: Worked as a design engineer at General Electric (GE) under W .C. White, Manager of the Vacuum Tube Engineering Dept. During this six year periods, he earned twelve patents for his new designs of vacuum tubes and related circuits.

General Electric American industrial company

General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate incorporated in New York and headquartered in Boston. As of 2018, the company operates through the following segments: aviation, healthcare, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing, venture capital and finance, lighting, and oil and gas.

Patent set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee so that he has a temporary monopoly

A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, usually twenty years. The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries patent rights fall under civil law and the patent holder needs to sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.

Vacuum tube Device that controls electric current between electrodes in an evacuated container

In electronics, a vacuum tube, an electron tube, or valve or, colloquially, a tube, is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied.

1938-1944: Transferred to GE's Purchasing Department, working under Harry Erlicher, VP Purchasing. Worked with vendors to obtain lower costs, then with change of emphasis to procure adequate quantities for the war effort.

Procurement is the process of finding and agreeing to terms, and acquiring goods, services, or works from an external source, often via a tendering or competitive bidding process. Procurement is used to ensure the buyer receives goods, services, or works at the best possible price when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. Corporations and public bodies often define processes intended to promote fair and open competition for their business while minimizing risks such as exposure to fraud and collusion.

War effort Coordinated mobilization of societys resources towards supporting a military force

In politics and military planning, a war effort refers to a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative size of the armed forces and the society supporting them, the style of government, and the popular support for the military objectives, such war effort can range from a small industry to complete command of society.

1944-1947: Transferred to Locke Insulator, Baltimore, Maryland, a subsidiary of GE, as manager of Purchasing. Saw first-hand both the productive and destructive force of human attitudes and practices, and their effect on appropriate designs and appropriate costs.

Fall 1947: Returned to Schenectady, New York to Erlicher's staff and was placed under William Sredenscheck who gave him full support to produce an approach for GE to improve cost and productivity.

Schenectady, New York City in New York, United States

Schenectady is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135. The name "Schenectady" is derived from a Mohawk word, skahnéhtati, meaning "beyond the pines". Schenectady was founded on the south side of the Mohawk River by Dutch colonists in the 17th century, many from the Albany area. They were prohibited from the fur trade by the Albany monopoly, which kept its control after the English takeover in 1664. Residents of the new village developed farms on strip plots along the river.

In December 1947, the basic Value Analysis Functional Approach was established.

1961 - Miles wrote the definitive book, Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering, published by McGraw Hill and Co. It is now[ when? ] in its 3rd edition and is printed in twelve languages. He retired in 1964 and died in 1985. [1] His wife, Eleanor R. Miles, survived him and continued to promote his work after his death. [2]

2017 - Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering has been released in a Kindle edition and is available on Amazon.com.

Laurence Delos Miles Value Foundation

The Miles Value Foundation was established in 1977 "to promote and fund the development of educational programs, new applications, and [to establish] a research library for the study of the Value Methodology". [3]

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The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric (GE); however, in 1932, RCA became an independent company after GE was required to divest its ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit.

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Feasibility Study is an assessment of the practicality of a proposed project or system.

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Biasing in electronics means establishing predetermined voltages or currents at various points of an electronic circuit for the purpose of establishing proper operating conditions in electronic components. Many electronic devices such as diodes, transistors and vacuum tubes, whose function is processing time-varying (AC) signals also require a steady (DC) current or voltage to operate correctly — a bias. The AC signal applied to them is superposed on this DC bias current or voltage. The operating point of a device, also known as bias point, quiescent point, or Q-point, is the DC voltage or current at a specified terminal of an active device with no input signal applied. A bias circuit is a portion of the device's circuit which supplies this steady current or voltage.

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Explosive forming is a metalworking technique in which an explosive charge is used instead of a punch or press. It can be used on materials for which a press setup would be prohibitively large or require an unreasonably high pressure, and is generally much cheaper than building a large enough and sufficiently high-pressure press; on the other hand, it is unavoidably an individual job production process, producing one product at a time and with a long setup time.

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References

  1. Laurence Delos Miles Value Foundation, Lawrence D. Miles (1904-1985)- Father of Value Analysis, accessed 16 March 2019
  2. Miles, E. R., Lawrence Delos Miles' "Techniques of value analysis and engineering, Ekistics, V Volume 56, No. 336/337, Value Engineering (May/June–July/August 1989), pp. 119-121
  3. Lawrence Delos Miles Value Foundation, Lawrence Delos Miles Value Foundation, accessed 16 March 2019