Critical Success Factors for Should Cost Planning
Abstract
Should Cost is a technique of contract pricing that is used to develop a realistic price negotiation objective. The Air Force accomplishes the Should Cost by sending an integrated team of government procurement personnel, contract administrators, auditors, and engineers to the contractor's facility. The objective of the team is to identify uneconomical and inefficient practices of the contractor and to quantify the findings in terms of their impact on cost. Leading procurement analysts at Headquarters Air Force Systems Command And Aeronautical Systems Division identified the lack of proper planning guidance as a major problem facing Air Force Should Cost efforts. Therefore, the thesis focused on identifying the critical success factors of Should Cost planning. To establish the critical success factors, the researchers designed and distributed a survey that gathered the data on former Should Cost team members' perceptions of various aspects of Should Cost planning. Comments were also solicited from the survey respondents through open-ended questions. The returned surveys were analyzed using the FREQUENCIES, T-TEST, and DISCRIMINANT subprograms of the Statistical package for the Social Sciences. Based on the statistical analyses and the respondent's comments, the researchers identified twelve critical success factors of Should Cost Planning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA148487
Entities
People
- Lee R. Heitman Jr.
- Teddy J. King
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology