TIME-COST TRADEOFFS IN UNCERTAIN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH PROJECTS

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between research project cost and expected time to completion under various scheduling strategies; it assumes that many potential technical approaches to the research problem can be identified; and that each approach has a low but finite subjective probability of success. It is shown that under a variety of assumptions, expected time to project completion can be reduced, but that as a result expected project cost rises at an increasing rate. Some cases in which this convex time-cost tradeoff relationship might not hold generally are identified. When the time-cost tradeoff function is convex, the desirability of concurrent as opposed to series scheduling of approaches depends crucially upon the depth of the stream of benefits expected to be realized upon successful project completion. The deeper the benefit stream is, the more desirable concurrent scheduling is.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1966
Accession Number
AD0636512

Entities

People

  • F. M. Scherer

Organizations

  • Princeton University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Computer Programming
  • Dynamic Programming
  • Economic Analysis
  • Economics
  • Engineering
  • Governments
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  • Incandescent Lamps
  • Integer Programming
  • Learning
  • Markov Processes
  • Materials
  • Military Research
  • Probability
  • Rocket Engines
  • Scheduling (Production)

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