Subject: Industrial Engineering And Management

Topic: Value Engineering and Value Analysis

Difficulty: Medium

• ‘Functional analysis system techniques’ (FAST) is a rigorous method for understanding complex systems by converting ‘activities’ performed in the systems to the ‘functions’ performed in the systems for its customers.

• This method is used in value engineering for product improvement, process improvement, systems design and system architecting.

• FAST permits people with dissimilar technical back grounds to effectively communicate and resolve issues that require multi-disciplined considerations.

• FAST builds upon value analysis by linking the simply expressed, verb-noun functions to describe complex systems.

• It describes the item or systems under study and cause the team of engineers to think through the functions that the item or system performs, forming the basis for a wide variety of subsequent approaches and analysis techniques.

• The FAST diagram or model is an excellent communications vehicle. Using the verb-noun rules in function analysis creates a common language, crossing all disciplines and technologies.

• It allows multi-disciplined team members to contribute equally and communicate with one another while addressing the problem objectively without bias or preconceived conclusions.

• FAST contributes significantly to Functional Analysis, which is the most important phase of value engineering.