Value engineering is an organized study to satisfy a user's needs with a quality product at the lowest life cycle cost through creativity. It is not cost cutting, design review, or scope reduction. Value engineering follows 8 steps: preparation, information gathering, functional analysis, speculation, evaluation, development, presentation, and implementation. It seeks to maintain or improve performance while reducing total costs. The analysis phase evaluates alternatives to identify those with the best combination of design, construction, operation and customer satisfaction factors at low life cycle cost.