The Value of Smart Design

criley574
Oct 28
4 min read

Updated: Nov 5

How value engineering drives smarter, scalable, and more sustainable retail displays.

Value engineering isn’t about spending less—it’s about designing smarter.

At Benchmarc Display, every fixture is built to adapt, scale, and perform across its lifecycle. By combining creative design thinking with precision engineering, we enable brands to deliver standout in-store experiences while controlling cost, complexity, and waste.

What does “value engineering” really mean (and why should you care)?

If you’ve ever heard a designer talk about “value engineering,” you may have pictured cost-cutting in its most basic form.

“Value engineering in retail can be defined as the re-engineering of a retail experience with the aim of reducing the overall cost without negatively impacting the value that the customers and staff gain from the store.” Retail4Growth

So, it’s not about cutting the shine and compromising the brand.

It’s about identifying where cost is being driven without corresponding value—and engineering it away. Think of it as designing to do more with less, rather than designing to cheap out.

Why this matters in retail fixtures

Let’s face it—retail is under pressure. Store formats must work harder: shorter installs, faster refreshes, more diverse footprints.

Fixtures are no longer static showpieces; they’re dynamic systems. But too often, the fixture becomes a cost sink: complex to manufacture, heavy in shipping, difficult to adapt, hard to update.

The aim: keep the customer experience high, while optimizing everything behind the scenes (materials, logistics, modularity, asset life). Because ultimately, if you reduce cost at the expense of experience, you’ve lost the game.

proof in practice

Sometimes the most eye-catching designs can quietly drain budgets once freight, installation, and maintenance enter the picture.

Many brands discover too late that their beautiful fixture concepts don’t travel well, don’t adapt easily to different store footprints, or simply costs more to update than to rebuild. Without a strategy that balances creativity with practicality, what looks great on paper can quickly become a logistical and financial headache in the field.

The Benchmarc Difference

Instead of treating it as a post-design cost cut, Benchmarc integrates value engineering principles from the start; analyzing materials, structure, and assembly to find smarter, leaner ways to achieve the same (or better) results.

Whether we're brought in at the start of the project or stepping in at the last minute, our goal isn’t to simplify for the sake of saving, it’s to refine, optimize, and strengthen. By designing fixtures that are lighter, modular, and easier to update, brands reduce freight costs, limit waste, and avoid the expensive rebrands that come from one-size-fits-all thinking.

Our approach delivers:

Smarter design: Modular systems that adapt to any footprint, maximizing the use of universal parts and interchangeable components.
Simpler logistics: We engineer to successfully ship to store. This means considering lighter weight materials, flat pack design based on UPS or freight shippability, and damage-resistant packaging.
Lower total cost: Based on alternative materials to maintain the quality of look and feel, scalable production (3D printing, injection molding, CNC, and more...), refurbishing parts, efficient installs, and more...
Faster rollouts: Field-ready systems designed for easy assembly, installation and refurbishment coordination.
Consistent branding: One design language, executed globally

Ultimately, great design should perform as beautifully as it looks. A value-engineered display doesn’t compromise creativity,it protects it. When every part has a purpose and every design decision supports scalability, your retail program stays agile, on-brand, and on budget.

That’s the sweet spot where Benchmarc works best: turning high-impact ideas into fixtures that look sharp, ship smart, and last longer.

Here are three examples where Benchmarc applied value engineering to deliver tangible results for brands.

Dutch Boy Colour Library Paint Displays

In 2014, Sherwin Williams needed a store refresh, to update their DutchBoy brand, (a nationwide rollout for Menards Stores),. We didn’t start from zero. Benchmarc had designed, produced, and installed their previous paint chip fixture in 2005.

Instead of developing from scratch, Benchmarc focused on refurbishing internal structural components rather than full replacements, designed a modular system to adapt across different store layouts, and standardized universal parts to reduce SKU complexity.

The result: faster rollouts, less waste, consistent brand presentation and a smarter supply chain.

Geberit Modular Actuator Display

Geberit, a major player in plumbing fixtures, faced a fixture install challenge:, that include: damage during shipments, cumbersome in-store product updates, and different products to displays per showroom.

Our solution: redesign the actuator tower to be easier to ship (lower damage risk), smaller footprint on the floor, and more adaptable to new products. when new products arrive. We also built a customer-facing order management website to streamline replenishment.

Outcome: installation timelines sped up, shipping costs dropped, field adoption improved.

The Athlete’s Foot Fixture REDESIGN

For a global franchise model, consistency, and speed are a must.

We reverse-engineered the existing fixture program, shifted manufacturing overseas (with US-based quality control), and built modular components that franchisees could order with ease.

The fixture program became simpler, faster to deploy, and more cost efficient—without compromising brand presentation across diverse store formats.

Why Benchmarc is uniquely positioned to do this

At Benchmarc, our design–engineering–manufacturing axis operates under one roof.

That means when we say we “engineer value,” we’re not leaving it to procurement after the fact. We design with modularity, logistics, retailer flexibility in mind from day one. We’ve executed large rollouts for big-box paint, plumbing fixtures, franchise networks and in every case the fixture becomes a system, not just a showpiece.

Ready to design smarter?

If you’re preparing for a store rollout, a national refresh, or looking to simplify your fixture ecosystem, it’s time to ask: Are we engineering for value—or just designing a display?

Let’s talk about how Benchmarc transforms your fixture program into a high-performing system.

Schedule a Call and we’ll walk through your goals, map out where value is being hidden, and build a plan to optimize it.