Lawrence D. Miles

Lawrence Delos Miles (April 21, 1904 Harvard, Nebraska – August 1, 1985) was an American engineer, and the creator of Value engineering.

Parents: Delos Daniel Miles, Superintendent of Harvard School, and Vinetta Conkle Miles, elementary school teacher.

1932-1938: Worked as a design engineer at GE under W.C. White, Manager of the Vacuum Tube Engineering Dept. In six years, he earned twelve patents for his new designs of vacuum tubes and related circuits.

1938-1944: Transferred to GE Purchasing Dept., 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.

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 Mr. 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.

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

1961 - Mr. Miles wrote the definitive book, Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering, McGraw Hill Co. publishers. It is now in its 3rd edition and is printed in twelve languages.

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