Value Analysis (VA) is considered to be a process, as opposed to a simple technique, because it is both an organized approach to improving the profitability of product applications and it utilizes many different techniques in order to achieve this objective. The techniques that support VA activities include 'common' techniques used for all value analysis exercises and some that are appropriate under certain conditions.

The VA approach is almost universal and can be used to analyze existing products or services offered by manufacturing companies and service providers alike.  For new products, the Value Engineering (VE) approach, which applies the same principles and many of the VA techniques to pre-manufacturing stages such as concept development, design and prototyping.

At the very heart of the VA process review is a concern to identify and eliminate product and service features that add no true value to the customer or the product but incur cost to the process of manufacturing or provision of the service. As such, the VA process is used to offer a higher performing product or service to the customer at a minimal cost as opposed to substituting an existing product with an inferior solution.