Course Description:
During design, it is common to compare different options for layouts, materials, equipment, and technologies. Often it is not clear which alternative is best. To tackle this challenge, methodologies have been developed to compare and select an alternative that best meets the unique needs of the project.
This course reviews approaches to comparing design alternatives for engineering projects. Topics include advantages tables, qualitative comparisons, quantitative comparisons, multi-criteria scoring, lifecycle costs, return on investment (ROI), payback periods, and sustainability analysis. Example problems are provided to show how to apply these comparison methods.
Learning Objectives:
• Learn methods for comparing design alternatives
• Understand the benefits of different comparison methods
• Learn the steps for performing multi-criteria scoring
• Gain tools for making financial assessments and comparisons
• Understand sustainability comparisons
• Learn the triple bottom line as it relates to selecting criteria
• Learn how to compare scores and select a path forwa
