On the Treatment of Uncertainty in Parametric Costing,

Abstract

'Parametric costing' is a generic name used to characterize a set of techniques defining a statistical approach for predicting large scale system costs at an early stage of system design. These techniques have been employed by the Department of Defense, Aerospace and other industries extensively during recent years because the record of cost overruns in acquiring complex systems suggests that the parametric approach is not only useful but perhaps preferred to the industrial engineering or 'grass roots' approach with which it is contrasted. Predictions of cost, however, are not exact and research efforts need to be directed toward quantifying their inherent uncertainty. Previous attempts to characterize uncertainty have often been extremely naive or mathematically incorrect. The major objective of this dissertation is to examine the treatment of uncertainty in parametric costing as an applied problem in operations research.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 02, 1976
Accession Number
ADA022153

Entities

People

  • Gerald R. Mcnichols

Organizations

  • George Washington University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Complex Systems
  • Cost Overruns
  • Costs
  • Department Of Defense
  • Engineering
  • Industrial Engineering
  • Interdisciplinary Science
  • Operations Research
  • Systems Engineering
  • Systems Science
  • Theses
  • Uncertainty

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis

Technology Areas

  • Space