2006 PRICE INSight
French Space Agency Reports High Satisfaction with PRICE H
Founded in 1961, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) is the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France's space policy in Europe. In 2004, CNES established a cost engineering team to work exclusively on orbital systems. The team's challenge was to collect effective historical data for use in estimating new, high-profile projects that involved high levels of innovation. Fabien Sitruk, Head of Cost Engineering, CNES Orbital Systems in Toulouse led an investigation into modelling methods and tools that could leverage the required historical data for cost estimates.
With the help of a PRICE consultant, Stiruk's team evaluated PRICE H on a new project for a formation- flying mission satellite, applying PRICE calibration and historical data to derive estimates. "At the end of this work, our choice of the PRICE H model has been positive and has strengthened our estimating practices," reports Stiruk.
Specifically, Stiruk cites several factors that have led to the agency's high satisfaction with PRICE H. "The final results were convincing, consistent with initial estimates made by the project manager, and technically justifiable," he said. "Calculated costs were directly associated with very explicit parameters for complexity, design effort, reuse and innovation level, and project size."
Stiruk envisions PRICE H as helping his team to enrich and better organize its historical cost database and improve criteria for normalizing product costs. Another strong point of satisfaction has been PRICE H's capabilities to support working collaboratively with teams of technical experts and costs engineers. "The working sessions which have involved interviews, calibration, and selection of complexity factors have been effective, pragmatic, and very easily accepted by our technical staff. This has been essential for us since cost estimating must be a team effort," he said.
PRICE Systems is always grateful to receive unsolicited testimonials from satisfied customers and very interested in sharing how our Program Affordability Management solutions are applied around the world. To submit your testimonial or to be considered as a candidate for a formal case study of how PRICE tools have benefited your programs and organization, contact your local PRICE office.
