Précis—Assessment of Airframe Production Cost Risk

Cost growth of weapon systems is a major concern of the DOD and its contractors. Almost half of the cost overrun on major weapon systems during the late 1960's and early 1970's was due to refinement of original cost estimates for reasons other than changes in performance, economic conditions, engineering and construction scheduling. A fruitful area to which to apply cost risk assessment techniques is the air-frame production cost during the proposal stage of an aircraft.