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Finance and Financial Management

Air Force Institute of Technology

Cost growth

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Analysis Of Time-Phased Estimates Accuracy, Budget Profile And Under-Spending In Defense Acquisition Programs, Thinh Q. Tran Mar 2021

Analysis Of Time-Phased Estimates Accuracy, Budget Profile And Under-Spending In Defense Acquisition Programs, Thinh Q. Tran

Theses and Dissertations

As fiscal resources become more limited due to the expanding range of mission needs, accurate cost estimating and budgeting have become more important than ever before. Accurate cost estimates allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to budget with confidence and to effectively communicate its needs to Congress. This research looks to analyze estimates from Air Force’s programs using Milestone B and Initial Operational Capability as the analysis window. Initial analysis of the linear interpolation of the percent budget change indicates that there is underspending in the earlier stages of acquisition programs’ development cycle. Additionally, looking at the cumulative budget change …


Comparing Estimated To Actual Development Budgets For Air Force Space Programs, Christopher J. Elworth Mar 2019

Comparing Estimated To Actual Development Budgets For Air Force Space Programs, Christopher J. Elworth

Theses and Dissertations

The accuracy of budget estimates is vital in ensuring cost efficiency and decreasing the possibility of budget and schedule growth. The goal of this study was to determine when budget estimates increase and what may cause those increases. Percent schedule and linear interpolation was used to analyze the budget changes. Space program budget growth does not increase at a constant rate between Milestone B (MS B) and Initial Operational Capability (IOC). When an exponential curve was fit to the deviations in budget growth, the mean and median R2 for the programs in this study were .83 and .91, respectively. Many …