To reverse engineer a product is to examine it and probe it in order to reconstruct a plan from which it could be built, and the

way it works. For instance if I took my clock apart, measured all the gears, and developed a plan for a clock, understanding how the gears meshed together, this would be reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is often used by companies to copy and understand parts of a competitors product, which is illegal, to find out how their own products work in the event that the original plans were lost, in order to effect repair or alter them. Reverse engineering products is illegal under the laws of many countries, however it does happen. There have been celebrated cases of reverse engineering in the third world. Re-engineering is the adjustment, alteration, or partial replacement of a product in order to change its function, adapting it to meet a new need. For instance welding a dozer blade into the frame of my ford fiesta car is an example of reengineering, in order to clear snow, or drive through my neighbors kitchen. Re-engineering is often used by companies to adapt generic products for a specific environment (e.g. add suspension for rally car, change shape of conveyor belt to fit a factory shape, alter frequencies of a radio transmitter to fit a new countries laws).

The reengineering of software was described by Chikofsky and Cross in their 1990 paper[1], as "The examination and alteration of a system to reconstitute it in a new form". Less formally, reengineering is the modification of a software system that takes place after it has been reverse engineered, generally to add new functionality, or to correct errors. This entire process is often erroneously referred to as reverse engineering; however, it is more accurate to say that reverse engineering is the initial examination of the system, and reengineering is the subsequent modification.

Reengineering is the bridge used by legacy software to migrate to an organizations new maintenance environment.
Reverse engineering is the general process of analyzing a technology specifically to ascertain how it was designed or how it operates. This kind of inquiry engages individuals in a constructive learning process about the operation of systems and products. Reverse engineering as a method is not confined to any particular purpose, but is often an important part of the scientific method and technological development. The process of taking something apart and revealing the way in which it works is often an effective way to learn how to build a technology or make improvements to it.