Value Analysis (VA) & Choosing By Advantages (CBA)

Choosing By Advantages (CBA) is a decision making system developed by Jim Suhr of the U.S. Forest Service to make the correct decisions for projects involving qualitative resources and decision factors.  It has been successfully incorporated into the decision making process of U.S. Government agencies, including the Forest Service and the National Park Service.

The methodology focuses on the advantages between an alternatives attributes and evaluates them by comparing all identified factors based on the most important advantage (the paramount advantage). Here are examples of the results using the methodology:

CBA Results Omni

In application it is integrated into the Value Analysis Job Plan as the key component of the Evaluation Phase. Here is the application:

 Value Analysis Job Plan

• Information Phase
• Function Analysis Phase
• Creative Phase
• Evaluation Phase
  • CBA Analysis
    • This may function as a first pass to narrow the number of considered alternatives with the designer doing further development work on the remaining alternatives
• Development phase (if required)
  • CBA Analysis
    • This may function as the final evaluation of the considered alternatives.
• Presentation Phase