From Product Description to Cost: A Practical Approach

Parametric cost estimating, when properly used, is a powerful and cost effective technique. Unfortunately, it is often misunderstood and rejected by many potential users for whom it could be a beneficial tool. An agreement on how to use it and how to recognise its limitations is a major benefit to the cost estimating community. This book presents ways of parametrically forecasting costs and their advantages and disadvantages with examples from the mechanical, software and building industries; it discusses most of the mathematical procedures useful for parametrically forecasting costs and introduces the judgement needed to audit the ways these techniques are used, firstly as a process and secondly as a tool to generate estimates. Volume 2 "Building a Specific Model" focuses on the building of specific cost estimating models. Understanding the procedures is key in creating successful specific models; so all these procedures (classical and new) are described in this volume.