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While performing at my work, there is criteria that is very important to make sure my co-workers and I follow to make sure our product is manufactured for the customer requirements. My company produces many solar panels each day that are sold around the world to alternative power assembly businesses. The customers want to make sure the panel arrays produce enough power and will last at least 20 years after assembled.

          The process in which I am responsible for is the sub module. It is a rectangular sheet of glass that is ground on all 4 sides to make sure the edges are not sharp and it ensures that it can withstand the stress of the high temperatures that it will continue to endure throughout many other processes during production.

The Primary Criteria that is followed:

1.)    The glass prepared to be the sub module should be machined to a size of 600mm +/-1mm x 1200mm +/-1mm in order to assemble into a finished solar module. The size is important when making many modules into an array for creating power.

2.)    The correct thickness of elements needs to be vacuum coated on to the sub module. The elements act as an isolation to later process that laser cut into the elements. The coated elements are measured every 100 plates.

3.)     Since the sub module is being heated and cooled rapidly by air, the possibility of it being warped needs to be addressed. The plate is measured for deflection to make sure it is flat within specification.

4.)    When the module is complete, a specific amount of light is emitted through it. This simulates sunlight into the module. A known amount of light will produce an amount of power that the module will produce. The input of light divided by the power created by the module is the efficiency of the particular module. This is the last criteria monitored by myself in our process. This number will be within a certain amount or my team will need to check our process parameters.

I left out much information due to the confidentiality of our company.

          On a more related criteria demonstration, my wife and I recently purchased a minivan. We had brainstormed together our own criteria for what we wanted in order to make it worthwhile.

1.)    We needed at least a 7 passenger vehicle in order to transport our girls and their friends back and forth to school functions. This also provided room for when our families would visit and we would be able to drive them around.

2.)    Cost was the most important criteria. We did not want to exceed our budget or else other bills would not be paid.

3.)    The mileage was important to us because of the re-sale of the vehicle 4-6 years later. The vehicle will hold value much more with lower mileage.

4.)    Cleanliness of the vehicle shows the former owners took very good care of the minivan. This reflects on the mechanical performance.

Those are the 2 examples of using criteria that I have used most recently.