Cost Estimator's Reference Manual

In today's hypercompetitive global marketplace, accurate costestimating is crucial to bottom-line results. Nowhere is this moreevident than in the design and development of new products andservices. Among managing engineers responsible for developingrealistic cost estimates for new product designs, the number-onesource of information and guidance has been the Cost Estimator'sReference Manual.

Comprehensive, authoritative, and practical, the Manual instructsreaders in the full range of cost estimating techniques andprocedures currently used in the fields of development, testing,manufacturing, production, construction, software, generalservices, government contracting, engineering services, scientificprojects, and proposal preparation. The authors clearly explain howto go about gathering the data essential to preparing a realisticestimate of costs and guide the reader step by step through eachprocedure.

This new Second Edition incorporates a decade of progress in themethods, procedures, and strategies of cost estimating. All thematerial has been updated and five new chapters have been added toreflect the most recent information on such increasingly importanttopics as activity-based costing, software estimating,design-to-cost techniques, and cost implications of new concurrentengineering and systems engineering approaches to projects.

Indispensable to virtually anyone whose work requires accurate costestimates, the Cost Estimator's Reference Manual will be especiallyvaluable to engineers, estimators, accountants, and contractors ofproducts, projects, processes, and services to both government andindustry.

The essential ready-reference for the techniques, methods, andprocedures of cost estimating

COST ESTIMATOR'S REFERENCE MANUAL Second Edition

Indispensable for anyone who depends on accurate cost estimates forengineering projects, the Cost Estimator's Reference Manual guidesthe user through both the basic and more sophisticated aspects ofthe estimating process. Authoritative and comprehensive, the Manualseamlessly integrates the many functions--accounting, financial,statistical, and management--of modern cost estimating practice.Its broad coverage includes estimating procedures applied to suchareas as:
* Production
* Software
* Development
* General services
* Testing
* Government contracting
* Manufacturing
* Engineering
* Proposal preparation
* Scientific projects
* Construction

This updated and expanded Second Edition incorporates all the mostimportant recent developments in cost estimating, such asactivity-based costing, software estimating, design-to-costtechniques, computer-aided estimating tools, concurrentengineering, and life cycle costing.

For engineers, estimators, accountants, planners, and others whoare involved in the cost aspects of projects, the Cost Estimator'sReference Manual is an invaluable information source that will payfor itself many times over.

RODNEY D. STEWART is President of Mobile Data Services, and seniorstaff consultant for Science Applications International Corporation(SAIC) and Computer Systems Technology. He has served as projectengineer and project manager with the National Aeronautics andSpace Administration, and as manager of the cost analysis office inthe Systems Analysis and Integration Laboratory of NASA's George C.Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is a pastnational president and past national policy director of theNational Estimating Society, and a certified cost estimator/analyst(CCE/A).

RICHARD M. WYSKIDA, PhD, is Professor of Industrial and SystemsEngineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Hisresearch has involved the minimization of system cost via theoptimization techniques of operations research. He is a seniormember of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, a member ofINFORMS, a member of the American Society for EngineeringEducation, and a registered professional engineer in the state ofAlabama.

JAMES D. JOHANNES, PhD, is Dean of the School of Graduate Studiesand Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alabama inHuntsville. He has served as principal investigator on numerouscomputer software projects during the past twenty years at theUniversity. His professional affiliations include the AmericanAssociation for Artificial Intelligence, the Association forComputer Machinery, and the IEEE Computer Society.