Early life cycle cost estimation: Fiscal stewardship with engineered resilient systems

Organizations are constantly seeking to achieve earlier and more accurate cost estimates in order to make better trades space and design decisions, as well as minimize project cost and schedule overrun. These estimates facilitate decisions that are more informed - especially within the United States Department of Defense's engineered resilient systems (ERS) program. This paper will discuss the current methods used to achieve life cycle estimates, the role of estimation within ERS, and recommend a parametric life cycle cost estimation model that will support decision-making. In addition, this paper will focus solely on early life cycle engineering inputs that translate with Department of Defense's pre-Milestone A in order to create an early life cycle cost estimation model (ELCE). This model leverages the engineering inputs (design parameters) that are typically available early in the design process in the following five categories: hardware, software, systems engineering, project management, and integration. This paper will also highlight future research goals to determine values for factors of economies of scale, regression analysis with real data, limitations, and potential impacts of application.