Affordability Management Symposium
March 29, 2007 (7:30am-4:00pm) Complimentary Breakfast and Lunch
Huntsville Marriott, Huntsville, Alabama
The Evolution of Program Affordability Management Anthony DeMarco, President & CEO, PRICE Systems, LLC
For nearly 30 years, PRICE Systems has enabled government agencies, defense programs, and commercial organizations to increase visibility; minimize risk and cost; accelerate project development and improve the effectiveness of project control and delivery. Mr. DeMarco will address PRICE Systems’ rich legacy, latest technology developments, and explore the roadmap for the future.
Preparing an Estimate for Oversight Review, Bruce Fad, Vice President of Solutions Division, PRICE Systems, LLC
The best weapon against an Oversight Review is preparation. In this interactive presentation, Mr. Fad will cover the following topics:
- Building and maintaining a Federated Data Base to serve as the foundation for audit worthy estimates.
- Establishing understanding of the estimating model.
- Calibrating an estimating model to the Federated Data Base to produce an adapted cost model.
- Linking cost with technology and/or performance data to produce estimating rationale.
- Applying what is known or suspected about a subject program to the adapted cost model.
- Presenting a credible estimate.
Examples of audit methods and standards will be discussed. The audience is encouraged to share their experience as we will be exploring the dos, don’ts, and tips on surviving an estimate audit.
Calibrating Models for Optimized Results, Gary Grey, Executive Consultant, PRICE Systems, LLC
Inaccurate estimates can be avoided by establishing a fundamental hardware calibration process. Learn how to define calibration, understand its purpose and process, and discuss its importance in the cost estimating environment.
Looking at Total Cost in the Design Phase Performance Based Modeling Grant Soremekun , Phoenix Integration
DoD initiatives such as Cost As An Independent Variable (CAIV) and Total Ownership Cost (TOC) continue to drive the need towards early and persistent use of cost, schedule and performance trade-offs. Integration between parametric cost models and performance models allow full exploration and optimization of the trade space, treating cost as another design parameter. Thus, there exists the need to estimate and optimize System-of-Systems (SoS) costs in a model capable of combining hardware and software cost objects.
This presentation will discuss the need for Systems-Of-Systems cost estimating and demonstrate how a conceptual engineering cost/performance model originally implemented in EXCEL can be extended by TruePlanning to estimate both Systems and Systems-of-Systems cost. Then, we will further expand the analysis in Model Center 7.0 to develop the CAIV trade space and optimize the best value design.
Performance Cost Modeling - Jim Otte , Director of Integrated Affordability Solutions PRICE Systems LLC
The biggest challenge facing Aerospace and Defense organizations is baseline estimating. During the early concept-exploration phase, cost analysts must predict the cost of advanced systems to be built with immature or non-existent technology lacking technical definition and relevant analogous data. Many times there is a disconnect between cost/performance requirements and the financial limitations on these programs. This paper will present an overview of how Aerospace and Defense organizations utilize parametric models to validate cost estimates and perform cost trade studies. Utilizing cost models, organizations streamline communications between cost engineering and finance for project control and excellence.
Overcoming the Challenges of Estimating Software Intensive Systems Jim Otte, Director of Integrated Affordability Solutions PRICE Systems LLC
Exponential improvements in software development environments and increased vulnerability to security couple with an ever widening circle of applicable uses for software in large scale systems. Add to this the growing trend toward non-traditional methods of delivering software solutions such as outsourcing software development, integrating commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions, and incorporating open source solutions and you wind up with software estimating challenges that transcend the current state of the art of estimating.
This presentation arms the software estimator with some practical methods for sizing software solutions in the context of these changes and for assessing the impacts of new technologies, methods, tools and constraints on the productivity of a software development project.
