Non-Financial Aspects of Perceived Affordability Improvement

Affordability within industry has grown in interest over the years as organizations strive to balance performance and cost effectiveness in projects. The desire to produce high quality outputs while adhering to budgetary and schedule limitations has led to a shift in focus that emphasizes improving affordability through organizational changes and practices. There are often variations in perceptions of applications and best practices in regards to affordability improvement. These variations may lead to misunderstandings between individuals, teams, and organizations when implementing a strategy to improve affordability. The purpose of the current study is to ascertain how individuals within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center perceive non-financial aspects of improving affordability. Participants (N=173) were asked to respond to a survey regarding their approaches to the concept of affordability. Both financial and non-financial aspects were mentioned in participant responses, however, this poster presents the results of the thematic analysis performed on the perceived approaches to improving affordability through non-financial aspects. The responses were categorized into 5 non-financial themes of Process (including design and technology), People, External Environments, Attributes, and Other. The majority of respondents (45%) believed affordability could be improved through Process-related methodologies. Results revealed Process and People categories to be the predominant industrial-organizational facets. Process was further broken down into Technology, Design, Requirements & Specifications, Documentation, Risk, Planning, Organization, and Schedule with Technology being the most frequent category mentioned by participants. The second most common response theme was People (31%) which was further broken down into sub themes of Workforce, Management, Communication, Customer & Stakeholders, Training, and Culture & Climate. For those participants who suggested People-related improvements to affordability, Workforce was the most frequent response. Responses were limited to categorization within a single category and subcategory by researchers. Additional investigation will analyze responses from a number of industries, including but not limited to the aerospace industry. The findings from this survey may help researchers understand perceptions of affordability improvement through non-financial aspects within the aerospace industry

On the change of cost risk and uncertainty throughout the life cycle of manufacturing products

In practice cost estimators typically assume that cost risk and uncertainty continuously decrease across the whole product life cycle. Industry case studies and semi-structured interviews indicate that while cost risk and uncertainty decreases between technology readiness levels / stage gates, it increases when technology readiness levels / stage gates change. This increase can lead to cost risk and uncertainty levels above those at previous technology readiness levels / stage gates. This difference between assumptions in practice and evidence from case studies and semi-structured interviews may lead to the over- and / or under-assignment of capital reserves over time, thus resulting in binding project capital unnecessarily and / or the need to increase projects budgets in an unplanned manner. Further research is suggested regarding the scale of changes in cost risk and uncertainty when technology readiness level changes / stage gates are arrived at in order to improve robustness of forecasting effort

A geometrical framework for forecasting cost uncertainty in innovative high value manufacturing.

Increasing competition and regulation are raising the pressure on manufacturing organisations to innovate their products. Innovation is fraught by significant uncertainty of whole product life cycle costs and this can lead to hesitance in investing which may result in a loss of competitive advantage. Innovative products exist when the minimum information for creating accurate cost models through contemporary forecasting methods does not exist. The scientific research challenge is that there are no forecasting methods available where cost data from only one time period suffices for their application. The aim of this research study was to develop a framework for forecasting cost uncertainty using cost data from only one time period. The developed framework consists of components that prepare minimum information for conversion into a future uncertainty range, forecast a future uncertainty range, and propagate the uncertainty range over time. The uncertainty range is represented as a vector space representing the state space of actual cost variance for 3 to n reasons, the dimensionality of that space is reduced through vector addition and a series of basic operators is applied to the aggregated vector in order to create a future state space of probable cost variance. The framework was validated through three case studies drawn from the United States Department of Defense. The novelty of the framework is found in the use of geometry to increase the amount of insights drawn from the cost data from only one time period and the propagation of cost uncertainty based on the geometric shape of uncertainty ranges. In order to demonstrate its benefits to industry, the framework was implemented at an aerospace manufacturing company for identifying potentially inaccurate cost estimates in early stages of the whole product life cycle

Development of an affordability assessment framework for defence contracts at the bidding stage

Defence contracting has changed from the traditional provision of spares and repairs to contracting long-term for availability and capability. In these long-term contracts, the customer decides to outsource services (that would have been provided in-house) to contractors by consenting to an arrangement whereby payment is made only for the period that the equipment is made available to satisfy the defence need. Availability contracts may last for 40 years and more, but the main defence customer (Ministry of Defence) is constantly faced with budget constraints. Therefore, it is vitally important to assess the financial viability of the customer to invest in the contractor‟s offering of availability, capability and other long-term contracts. The aim of the affordability research project is to develop an affordability assessment framework for the bidding stage of defence contracts. Thus, a close interaction with four industrial collaborators within the defence industry and the literature review revealed the need to investigate affordability from three perspectives namely, manufacturer profitability, supplier sustainability and customer affordability. In order to conduct the research, the methodology employed included the review of literature, industrial interviews, development of the affordability framework for the three perspectives, case study application and final validation. This resulted in the development of a uniquely original affordability assessment framework that consisted of four modules and an affordability management methodology. The modules provided measurement metrics for the three perspectives of affordability and guidelines for improving affordability from the perspectives. Information availability at the bidding stage was usually low which lead to uncertainty about the project; the fourth module was focused on determining the information capability of the project team. To assess the impact of uncertainty on affordability, a methodology which involved a logic (containing two aspects) was also developed and validated within this research. The framework developed was validated with three real-life case studies and the results obtained showed that the logic and content of the framework was appropriate. The benefit to industry is that the framework provides a platform for the manufacturer and customer to assess the affordability of defence project at the bidding stage and make decisions taking account of the impact of uncertainty.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo