Mr. Bytheway, a Certified Value Specialist, was the first recipient of the “Lawrence D. Miles Award” by the Society of American Value Engineers for his creative development of FAST Diagramming. He was recommended to be on President Ronald Reagan’s panel of experts to control “runaway government spending,” called the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control.
If you haven’t read any of his papers, then you’re not aware that the developer of FAST has stated that he rarely finished a FAST diagram. Charles Bytheway used function analysis and FAST as stimulators for creative thinking. He asked what he called the “thought-provoking questions” to get the team to think creatively. He played roles, and switched roles, and encouraged role-playing among his team members. He was not even aware of some of the techniques he was using, until others – who could not replicate his approach – forced him into documenting what it was he was doing and how he was doing it. Function Analysis System Technique – FAST – diagramming, became an integral part of the value analysis process.
Mr. Bytheway served in the United States Navy in World War II. He followed the war years by
serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in New Zealand for 27 months. Since then he has served in Bishoprics and other ecclesiastical positions of leadership within his church for the past 45 years.
In 1952 he received his Bachelors degree (BSME) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah. During college he worked for 4 years as a carpenter and designed and built two of his own homes. After college he designed heating and air-conditioning systems for homes and businesses and also designed underground mining equipment before he went to work for the Sperry Rand Corporation.
He received a Value Engineering Certificate from UCLA in 1960 and that year joined Sperry Utah's Stress Analysis Department and conducted the first Value Engineering Seminar within the Sperry Rand Corporation that year. In 1961 he received his Masters Degree (MSME) from the University of Utah. He then went on to serve as Sperry’s Director of Value Engineering until he retired in 1981. He says “...they railroaded me into running it. I never did get to work in the stress group.”
However, he did design a turret for a 62 millimeter Gatling Gun during the Vietnam War.
He has 19 papers published on FAST Diagramming and related subjects and is presently writing a book on the creative aspects of FAST Diagramming. He developed a mapping technique for simplifying logic equations.
After retiring he worked with a team who performed Value Engineering consulting work on new construction for the various Universities of California at Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
He then went to work for the Salt Lake Community College and started their Mechanical Engineering Department and became an Associate Professor in the department.
He is married to the former Frieda Duehlmeier. They have been married for 55 years and have had six children, four daughters and two sons, twenty three grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
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