retro-engineer

Verb

retro-engineer (third-person singular simple present retro-engineers, present participle retro-engineering, simple past and past participle retro-engineered)

1. (transitive) To reverse-engineer; to analyze (an existing item) in order to determine how to replicate it.
   • On other occasions, where the technical basis for the initial entry cannot be defended, the second mover has the advantage, since it may well be less costly to retro-engineer a product than to have invented and innovated it.2006, David O. Faulkner, Andrew Campbell, The Oxford Handbook of Strategy, →ISBN
   • I suspected that's why I could so easily retro-engineer and re-invent their ultra-superior and advanced technology.2010, Greg Castle, Remote Viewer: NSA Secret Agent, →ISBN, page 99
2. (transitive) To develop (a process) by starting with the goal and working backwards to determine the steps needed to achieve it.
   • Use the functional interaction with your best performers to retro-engineer a mission, values, and culture check-in.2002, J. Leslie McKeown, Retaining Top Employees, →ISBN, page 175
   • Set out the ambitions within a realistic time-frame, and re-engineer what you need to achieve in order to get there, taking into account possible interdependencies between different communication elements. This is altogether not very different from any IT project: define your goals, break it into...2009, Peter Hinssen, Jeroen Derynck, Business/IT Fusion, →ISBN
3. (transitive) To revise or adapt (an existing item or process) in order to achieve a new purpose.
   • All of this makes some sense in terms of using the windfall brownfield site to retro-engineer a more mixed use form of development, but it does show up the shortcomings of the previous approach and the difficulties of achieving the new constraint policy.2009, Graham Haughton, Philip Allmendinger, David Counsell, The New Spatial Planning, →ISBN
   • And yet, when a teenager with known suicidal tendencies overdoses on easily available pills, many will feel fully entitled to demand recompense from the homeowner whose inadvertence so predictably in-fact and proximately contributed to the tragedy, and any effort to retro-engineer a precautionary...2014, John Oberdiek, Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Torts, →ISBN, page 394