- Emperor Akbar calls a meeting of his court to address rising material costs for weapons that is straining the budget without raising taxes. - Birbal presents 6 ideas to redesign the sword hilt using techniques like part reduction, commonization, benchmarking, alternate materials, weight reduction, and yield improvement to lower the material cost by at least Rs. 20 without compromising function. - Birbal convinces the Emperor to test the new design in barracks before deploying, which could save Rs. 10 lakhs, addressing the budget issue without raising taxes.

1. Welcome to the court of Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar

2. 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.

3. Why everyone’s 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 function al requirements. Brilliant!. Tell us those ideas. !? !! ??

4. Presently, the hilt has 7 parts. The proposed design will have 4 . Part Count Reduction Existing Design 7 parts New Idea 4 parts

5. For the new hilt, instead of designing exclusive rivets, we can use the rivets of daggers. Part Commonisation x

6. 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. Benchmarking New Idea Existing Design Curved portion

7. Alternate Material The sheath which houses the blade is made of copper now. We can switch over to Alloy steel which is cheaper. Blade Sheath Copper Steel

8. Weight Reduction Since alloy steel is stronger than copper, we can reduce the thickness by 0.5 mm which will save material Blade Sheath 2 mm 1.5 mm

9. 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

10. Your majesty. The present design is being used since the time of Babur without any failure. We should not risk any design change. Saheb, there is no doubt that the present sword designed by you for my Grandfather’s 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 . If the ideas pass the test, we can save atleast Rs. Ten Lakhs this year, thus serving the purpose of cost reduction. There is an advantage also. I do not have to increase the tax.

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

12. 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. Yes, your Majesty.