Quality Tables		page contents What How Go On
What Is It Good For?		This tool is particularly useful for evaluating and refining alternatives, but can be used to analyze resources and needs as well. Breaking down a resource, issue, or alternative into components helps analyze quality. This works best if you are refining already defined items. This table helps display each alternative in a consistent manner to help identify potential problem areas and streamline an alternative so that it more completely addresses the underlying goal without unnecessary actions. This tool also helps analyze each alternative and suggest improvements by looking at an alternative's separate components and the functions.
How Do I Use It?		Use a table like the one below to compare components. Ask:   What are each component's greatest strengths and weaknesses? Are there any potential fatal flaws? How could the weak areas be improved? After analyzing each alternative or issue on the dimensions of quality, compare them. Can stronger areas be transferred to another alternative which may be weak in that area? Can one solution address more than one issue? You may want to exchange, improve, or further examine some components to ensure the highest overall quality for each alternative. Underlying Goal Objective Component Primary Objective Supplemental Objectives These can include necessary goals that go beyond or that don't directly support the main objective. Alternative Reliability Probability of continued success or of failure. Conformance Consistency with analysis, specifications, technology. Durability Expected solution life, time until obsolete. Maintenance Institutional, physical, and other means needed to support the solution over the long term Perceived quality How various publics perceive the quality of the component/alternative and how it is perceived to meet the objective Environment (biological, physical, social, aesthetic) Discuss impacts to these criteria. Value engineering can tell you more about quality tables and other methods to analyze components.
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