Integrated Models and Data

Other Tools Included in ICE™

Data Sources Integrated into ICE™

Other Data Sources In-Work

Integrated Models and Data In-Depth

The SEER suite of tools are products of Galorath, Incorporated that use parametric modeling for cost estimation of hardware and software projects.

SEER-H
SEER-H is the hardware estimation model used to estimate development and production costs, scheduling and risks associated with hardware acquisition. It can be used at any stage of the acquisition process. There are three areas where SEER-H contributes to the overall estimate:

• Development estimates include nonrecurring costs of element design, prototype fabrication, engineering test (including validation and performance tests), integration and test, systems engineering, program management, engineering data (including technical manuals and test data), management data, support data (training, logistics, etc.), peculiar support equipment (includes all equipment needed for the nonrecurring development program and low rate production and operations), and tooling.
• Production estimates include total production cost, average unit production cost, and first unit cost. It also includes recurring cost of material, fabrication, integration and assembly (may include integration into next higher element), production support, sustaining engineering, program management, and tooling maintenance.
• Risk represents a specific estimate probability level. The probability parameter corresponds to a probability of successful completion given the inputs that have been provided. When the probability parameter is high, risk is low and when probability is low, risk is high. The initial setting of the probability parameter is 50%, which will give the most likely estimate. The actual outcomes are equally likely to be higher or lower.
  

SEER-SEM
SEER-SEM is used to estimate software development and maintenance cost effort, schedule, and risk. It can also model reusable and commercially purchased software and the integration costs.

SEER-DFM
SEER Design for Manufacturability (DFM) Model is an estimation and analysis tool that enables the user to identify, evaluate, and manage the complex array of cost, labor, assembly, process, part design, material, and production variables that affect manufacturing operations.

This approach will enable an analyst to describe in as much detail as desired, all of the components required for a new-technology system and model the manpower required to take basic materials and operate various manufacturing machines, equipment, and processes on the materials to produce finished components for assembly into a new system.

Integrated into ICE™, SEER-DFM can help engineers make better decisions with more confidence, understand risk, and recognize opportunities to improve processes. This integration can help managers make critical decisions about trade-offs and alternatives that align innovative product design with optimum manufacturing processes.

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PRICE

The PRICE (Parametric Review of Information for Costing and Evaluation) models are products of PRICE Systems. 

PRICE-H
PRICE-H is the hardware cost model within the PRICE family of models. It is a computerized method for deriving cost estimates of electronic and mechanical hardware assemblies and systems. PRICE-H is a model that uses traditional parametric methods to derive cost estimates. There are two areas where PRICE-H contributes to the overall estimate:

• Development estimates include Drafting (all expenses incurred by the Drafting Department(s)), Design (all costs attributed to the Detail Design Department(s)), Systems, Project Management, Data, Prototype, and Tool-Test Equipment.
• Production estimates include Drafting (all expenses incurred by the Drafting Department(s) responding to engineering change notice activities), Design (all costs attributed to the Detail Design Department(s) responding to engineering change notice activities), Project Management, Data (Production items only), Production (manufacturing costs), Tool-Test Equipment, Design Factors and Product Descriptors, Schedule, Supplemental Information, Tooling and Process Factors, and Check Values.

SAGE

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CORE

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MOCA

Obsolescence of electronic components is becoming a significant issue as the operating life of military systems is extended and as the development times of new weapon systems becomes longer. The cost to resolve obsolescence issues can greatly increase the operating cost of a system. ICE™ now has the capability to assess the cost impact of obsolescence and show the affect on the Return on Investment (ROI) value of a modification. With the affect of obsolescence included, what was a marginal ROI value may become very good.

The Mitigation of Obsolescence Cost Analysis (MOCA) software tool was developed by the CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium at the University of Maryland and is supported by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories and Wright-Patterson AFB via the ManTech Sustainment Initiative, Manufacturing for Sustainment (Electronic Part-obsolescence Initiative).

Mitigation of Obsolescence Cost Analysis is a methodology and it’s implementation (MOCA) was developed for determining the part-obsolescence impact on life-cycle sustainment costs for the long, field life electronic systems based on future production projections, maintenance requirements and part-obsolescence forecasts.
Based on a detailed cost analysis model, the methodology determines the optimum design refresh plan during the field-support-life of the product. The design refresh plan consists of the number of design refresh activities, their respective calendar dates, and content to minimize the life-cycle sustainment cost of the product.

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DoD Facilities Sustainment Model

The Facility Sustainment Model (FSM) provides the Department of Defense and others with a set of estimates–also called cost factors–for the new construction and annual maintenance (sustainment) of nearly 400 facility types. Included are the cost factors for all facility types compiled in the DoD Facilities Cost Factors Handbook, version 3.0, published by The Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations. Although based on the best commercially available data sources, FSM benefits from the knowledge of each military service’s unique facility requirements.

In ICE™, the implementation of FSM provides a methodology and guidance to apply these cost factors in accordance with the sustainment relationship as they use the DoD accepted factors / data. This includes “area” cost factors to enable an estimate for almost any location on the globe for construction, modifications, and maintenance and repair of facilities over a 50-year service life.

Overall, ICE™ with FSM integrated, enables sustainment cost calculations at the programmatic level useful for DoD and Service-level modeling for new construction and/or sustainment for projects requiring re-stationing and regionalization, joint facilities studies, determining rates of re-capitalization, and /or describing the magnitude of a facility inventory in a common unit of measure.

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Other Tools Included in ICE™

Obsolescence Mitigation Strategy Factor Calculator
Due to today’s accelerating pace of electronic technology improvements, obsolescence of electronic components has a large impact on the cost of weapon systems. To provide a means to estimate the obsolescence impact of electronic components on a system, an obsolescence calculator is integrated into ICE™. This Obsolescence Mitigation Strategy Factor Calculator provides a means to estimate the obsolescence impact of a system’s electronic components by application of an obsolescence factor equally to each year of the life-cycle period for the system or by defining sub-periods of the life-cycle to apply a different obsolescence factor due to the use of a different mitigation strategy factor to each sub-period.

User Input Questionnaires
ICE™ includes several User Questionnaires to enter elements with known costs from Subject Matter Experts. They also enable use of existing cost data when a cost model is not available or is not integrated in ICE™. In these cases, the user may run the model off-line, and then manually enter the results into one of the User Questionnaires. There are six user questionnaires.

• The User Hardware Questionnaire enables the user to enter costs manually for the development, production, and operations and support phase of the life-cycle for hardware elements included in an estimate. The user is prompted to provide the required inputs appropriate for each life-cycle phase. In the Operations and Support Phase, the user chooses either to enter costs or enter the item’s reliability factors.
• The User Hardware Removed Questionnaire enables the user to enter maintenance costs or reliability factors manually for hardware elements being removed from the system. This questionnaire is completed for each platform included in the estimate. The user has three options for including the maintenance cost of an item: enter the annual costs, enter reliability factors, or enter the exchange factors. Using either of the factor options, ICE™ will use the inputs to estimate the costs.
• The User Software Questionnaire enables manual entry of development, production, and maintenance costs for software elements. While generally, the cost of new software is focused only in the development phase since the production of software is normally a simple recording media reproduction cost, provision to input SW costs during the production phase are included along with an estimate of maintenance cost in the O&S phase. Purchasing commercial off the shelf (COTS) software is an example of software cost that may fall into the production phase.
• The User Software Removed Questionnaire enables the user to enter software maintenance cost savings/avoidance for software elements that are being removed from the system or are no longer maintained.
• User Operations and Support Questionnaire
• The User O&S Questionnaire enables the user to enter operating and support (O&S) costs manually for a system. The user may enter an overall O&S annual cost or enter costs at level 1 of the CAIG cost elements structure. The O&S costs are entered for both the baseline values and the concept values for each platform in the concept.
• The User Other Questionnaire enables the user to enter development, production, and operating and support costs manually for elements not specified as hardware, software, or O&S. These elements would be elements such as training, engineering change orders, or Other Government Costs. For each cost phase, the user may enter a cost or select the option to enter a percent factor applied equally across the selected life-cycle phase or split by year.

ICE™-Excel Data Import Interface
The ICE™ data import module enables a user to import into ICE™ the cost results for a WBS component. This feature enables import of virtually any cost data, formatted in Excel, to use as part of the ICE™ estimate.

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Data Sources Integrated into ICE

AFTOC
The Air Force Total Ownership Cost (AFTOC) Management Information System presents various data products to show the evolving cost of ownership for Air Force weapon systems. The products provide the user with cost information about Air Force weapon systems in multi-formats reflecting consistent data collection methods across a spectrum of Air Force accounting systems. (Note: requires User ID and password to access)

Two forms of AFTOC data are integrated into ICE™:

•  First, ICE™ integrates the Commodities Data product obtained by AFTOC from the Standard Base Supply System (SBSS). The SBSS Data represents the accountable and auditable transactions that occur at the operations level by the using organizations supporting Air Force weapon systems. The information in the Commodities Data product represents items charged as Material Support Division (MSD) and General Supply Division (GSD) parts by National Stock Number (NSN). Each SBSS transaction is coded with the Mission Design Series (MDS) of the intended weapon system. Also, the Commodities data is fiscally constrained to the current fiscal year. ICE™ uses this data to represent depot level repairable data to identify high cost drivers and provide a library of parts by NSN to remove from a baseline system the current cost of operating and supporting a selected weapon system.
• Also integrated into ICE™, as a means to provide an analogy method of estimating operations and support (O&S) costs, is the actual O&S cost of current Air Force weapon systems presented by the AFTOC Management Information System by fiscal year in the Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) format. The CAIG format identifies both direct and indirect cost to the CAIG element and sub-element level by major system or aircraft MDS to reflect actual expenditures from the Command On-line Accounting and Reporting System (COARS) with fuels costs taken from Fuel Automated Management System (FAMS)/Fuel Accounting System (FAS), and military personnel costs derived from the E300Z personnel system. When coupled with flying hours and inventory quantities from Reliability and Maintainability Information System (REMIS), a comprehensive estimate of the cost is available to the ICE™ user to estimate changes to the existing weapon systems.

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AFI 65-503 Cost and Planning Factors

To support the CORE Operations and Support model, ICE™ includes the AFI 65-503 Cost and Planning Factors maintained and published by SAF/FM. These Operating and Support factors provide data to support various analyses, cost studies, estimates, reports, articles, general information responses, etc., but especially provide compatible input for the Operating and Support models published with the data. Updated and published periodically on a SAF/FM home page, the tables provide timely updates of Logistics, Personnel, Programming, Inflation, Attrition, and other various Operating and Support factors of Air Force aircraft weapon systems.

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OSD Inflation Indices

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