“Equivalent” is only equivalence under some chosen metric, and the choice is usually smuggled in rather than argued.
Welds trade serviceability for production cost is the case in point. Welded and bolted assemblies are equivalent on strength and unit cost, and non-equivalent on repairability. Calling the welded version “the equivalent product” silently reprices which properties count.
So Redesign the job, not the current version has a prior step: state the metric under which the redesigned thing is supposed to be equivalent, and name what it stops being good at.