Posted by Cost Modeling Data Standards for Model Integration
Models Track
Downloadable Files:
MOD-11 McDowell Paper Cost Modeling Data Standards
MOD-11A McDowell Paper Cost Modeling Data Standards
Abstract:
The objective of the work described in this paper is to develop data exchange mechanisms necessary to revolutionize the efficiency and accuracy of cost estimating through automated data exchanges with design and performance models and simulations. This development is intended as an early step towards fully integrating cost estimating into the modeling and simulation (M&S) domain, enhancing the prediction of the affordability of future systems, and the understanding of the costs of alternatives courses of action and operational scenarios. The paper will describe progress to date and present the data standards in the form of XML schemas, the highlight of which will be a generalized Cost Modeling Object. This paper will be of interest to organizations and analysts interested in cost as an output or a constraint in system design models and simulations.
This work supports the goal of the Army’s Simulation & Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements and Training (SMART) costing initiative, which is to develop performance-based cost estimating capabilities linked to engineering design tools to enable cost trades optimizing performance for a given cost. The Army’s Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army – Cost & Economic (ODASA-CE), as sponsor of this effort, is pursuing standard naming conventions with common semantics and structure for the cost analysis domain. The benefit will be to enhance the determination of systems’ affordability by facilitating the discovery, automated composition, and remote invocation of cost estimating tools by system performance and design models in the M&S domains.
Author:
Jeff McDowell
Jeff McDowell is employed by Tecolote Research, Inc. as the Chief Scientist for the Huntsville Group, where he performs cost research and cost estimating for numerous customers. He has twenty-seven years of experience in cost estimating, cost analysis and cost modeling. Mr. McDowell received a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from Auburn University in 1979.