This book is the culmination of many years of cost-improvement efforts. Businesses are always concerned about cost. This is part of the profitability equation for any ongoing concern. There is a connection between the cost of the product and the sale price of the product. The product cost is much more than the material costs; it is process costs, inventory holding costs, insurance, and so much more. To be effective in our cost improvement, we will need various techniques with a range of sophistication. This variety allows everybody within the company to contribute, much like the Total Quality Management processes, tools, and techniques. The genesis of this book was a collaboration with a procurement-specializing firm.

They had strong skills in material acquisition (procurement) and, for example, cost modeling. These are specialized approaches within a specific domain. Good to have but leaves many other cost-improvement possibilities on the table. We understood our benefit to them was beyond these types of cost improvement, which can have limitations and potential downsides if these are the only techniques at our disposal. For example, consider some of the supplier-customer relationships. In our experience, there are times when the supplier is not treated as a partner but is constantly in demand for cost reductions, even for mature products and processes. In our discussions with the procurement organization and a specific customer, the procurement organization brought up sourcing locations, "should cost modeling", and long-term contracts. The customer said we already have long-term contracts and gained safeguards against large fluctuations in the material.

Our band of engineers was the only group researching material substitution for that industry and that specific material presently used. We did this using AI prompts in 2023. This had great potential, but the customer was looking for a quick win, so it was not a viable solution -at that moment.