Page 179 - Solid Waste Analysis and Minimization a Systems Approach

STEP 7: DETERMINE, EVALUATE, AND SELECT WASTE MINIMIZATION ALTERNATIVES 157

its roof, and organizational wants versus waste minimization options as the house. The
House of Quality can also increase cross-functional integration within organizations
using it, especially among marketing, engineering, and manufacturing.
The basic structure is a table with whats as the rows on the left and hows as the
columns. Rankings based on the whys and the correlations can be used to calculate
priorities for the hows. House of Quality analysis can also be cascaded, with hows
from one level becoming the whats of a lower level; as this progresses the decisions
get closer to the engineering/manufacturing details.
Before proceeding with the screening process, the team should decide on the eval-
uation criteria (the whats) and weighting system. A scale of 1 to 10 for weighting each
criterion is recommended. These weightings should be determined by the team, proj-
ect manager, facility manager, or a combination of all three. The evaluation criteria
should be directly related to the overall goals of the project, such as

■ Reduction in waste amounts
■ Reduction in waste toxicity
■ Reduction in waste disposal costs
■ Reduction in purchasing costs
■ Revenue generation potential
■ Low start-up costs
■ Productivity improvements
■ Quality improvement
■ Ease of implementation
■ Impact on employee morale
■ Impact on organization image
■ Impact on safety
■ Other factors as determined by the team

Once these criteria have been created, the team should rank them on a scale of 1 to
10 based on importance. For example, waste reduction in waste amounts could
received an importance rating of 10 (meaning it is highly important) versus low start-
up costs receiving an importance rating of 2 (meaning that start-up costs are of low
importance and not a major factor in the decision process). These criteria should then
be placed into the column headers of the spreadsheet with importance weightings in
parentheses. Figure 8.23 provides an example.
Once the criterion and importance ratings have been established, the team should
list each alternative in the rows under the option column. In the row for each alter-
native, the team should place a rating score corresponding to the level of which the
alternative meets the criterion, with 0 being no impact and 10 being great impact. For
example, if the team is considering the purchase of a cardboard baler, the reduction in
waste amounts could be significant, so the team could rate it an 8, but in the start-up
cost criterion, the team could rate it lower, such as a 1, due to the high implementa-
tion cost. Once each alternative is rated, the ratings should be multiplied by the
importance factor and each row should be summed. This score will allow the team to
objectively screen each alternative. Once all of the alternatives are listed and scored,