Engineering Project Management Spacecraft Design Tuesday January 21

Engineering Project Management Spacecraft Design Tuesday, January 21, 2003 M. Mc. Grath

Project Management • Project Management is the Science and Art of Enhancing the Probability of Success by Inspired Leadership using Structured Techniques for Planning that Integrate Technical Performance, Scheduling and Budgeting (1)-Fundamentals of Space Systems - Pisacane and Moore

Project Management • Guide and Direct the effort – Science and Art – Enhancing the Probability of Success – Leadership (Inspired or not) – Structured Techniques for Planning • Integrate Technical Performance, Scheduling and Budgeting

Elements of Management • • • Request for Proposal (RFP) Proposal Preparation Schedule and Costs Types of Contracts (CPFF; FP) Management Tools (PERT/Gantt ; WBS) Project Organization Configuration Management Monitoring, Communication and Decision Making Production and Quality Control - Documentation Test and Checkout

Objectives of a Project Management Structure • Deliver a product that meets the requirements of the project’s objectives. (Systems Engineering) • Deliver a product that meets the requirements of the contract delivery schedule • For commercial companies: meet profit objectives

Prerequisites • Must have adequate resources and facilities available to meet the delivery schedule • Terms of the contract must be realistic and adequate to cover the cost to perform under the contract

Project Management Resources • Administrative – Management, Infrastructure, Overhead, Building, etc. • Engineering – Scientists, Engineers, Technicians, Outside vendors

Continued • Cost Management – Estimating, Accounting, Cash Flow, Direct/Overhead Rate, Earned Value, Profit • Contract Law • Negotiations • Scheduling

Project Manager’s Authority • Technical Decisions – Directing the design approach – Selecting subsystems or components – Identifying type and scope of tests • Commercial Decisions – Make or Buy – Selecting/recommending subcontractors or vendors

Continued • Administrative Decisions – Selecting and assigning personnel – Scheduling personnel, resources and equipment • Monetary Decisions – Determining the expenditure of funds

Project Procurement • RFP -- Request for Proposal – Cover Letter – Specifications – Contract Schedule – Technical Proposal Requirements – Cost Breakout (Details and Depth) – General and Administrative Clauses – Supplemental Data

Project Procurement (Continued) • Do you participate? – Since contract gets awarded to only one company — unsuccessful efforts can be a loss. • Considerations: – 1. Technical Resources – 2. Facilities – 3. Workload – 4. Competition — Advantages and Experience – 5. Delivery. . . Reasonable? – 6. Risks?

Technical Considerations and Performance Specifications • Careful Consideration and Review – Primary Analysis • Design approach that satisfies requirements – Secondary Analyses • Design approach that is most compatible with resources, experiences and facilities

System Design Considerations • Translation of the technical performance requirements into the system technical approach. • Dividing the system into tiers of design • Selecting feasible subsystem designs that are compatible with each other, and will satisfy specification requirements

Continued • Reviewing and revising the system design approach so as to optimize from the point of view of: – cost – required performance – schedule • Preliminary Block Diagram • Work Breakdown Structure

Preparation of the Proposal • Format of the Proposal: Presentation, Rules, Length, etc. • Areas of work that need to be included • Evaluation Factors: – Criteria for scoring – Weighing of factors • Proposal Outline

Continued • Proposal Language: How best to get your point across • Technical Description • Costing • Scheduling • Management — facilities, personnel, experience • Team Review

Contracts • Fixed Price and Cost Reimbursable • Fixed Price – Cost is established at the signing of the contract, and assuming no changes are made, the price remains fixed. • Cost Reimbursable – Contractor is reimbursed for all or part of the costs incurred in the execution of the contract.

Factors Influencing Contract Selection • Complexity of the design – Low Complexity. . . Fixed Price – High Complexity. . . Cost Reimbursable • Risk Assumed by the Contractor – Low Risk. . . Fixed Price – High Risk. . . Cost Reimbursable

Continued • Period of Contract. . . Rate Changes, Overhead Changes, Technical Changes • Competition – Many bidders may change a cost reimbursable contract to a fixed price. This is generally more desirable from the customer’s point of view.

Types of Fixed Price Contracts • Firm Fixed Price (FFP) – Contractor agrees to deliver to specification for a firm, fixed price. • Fixed Price with Escalation Contract – certain costs (labor rates, materials, overhead) can be adjusted

Continued • Fixed Price with Redetermination Contract – Upward and downward adjustment – Downward adjustment • Redetermination during life of contract • Redetermination after life of contract • Fixed Price Incentive (Minimal R&D) – Long periods of time / Large production quantities – Reward / Penalize cost control of manufacturing and gen. admin.

Two Step Procurement • First solicitation made for Technical Proposals • Some selected for Concept Study – Effective at identifying problems early – Information provided to proposer – Minimizes time spent

Cost Type Contracts • Greatest Risk on Customer • Used when there is significant Research and Development (R&D) • Wise to use contractor who: – has experience – has history of performance

Continued • Customer counts on contractor giving his best effort. Cost overruns typically result in a “reputation” that can be factored in during subsequent efforts. • No incentive for efficient operation • Two Types of Cost Type Contracts – Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) – Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF)

Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) • Fixed fee or profit as % of expected contract cost • Contractor is reimbursed for all expenses • Fee can change when costs incurred are beyond control of contractor – Scope change, strike, failure of customer to deliver • Contractors generally try to meet targets

Continued • Overruns indicate poor management, in effect, contractor is in wrong business • Justification for use – Heavy R&D, Difficult to estimate cost, Bidding to a performance specification • Customer Protection – Clause insertion • Subcontract approval, allowable costs, negotiated overhead rates

Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF) • Compromise between Fixed Price and CPFF • Provides for the reimbursement of allowable costs and a fee based on an incentive formula

Risk • Purpose of a commercial organization is to make a profit • Companies may be willing to bid and take a loss if: – there is expectations of more units to be built – if they can keep key people working during a slack period

Project Management Tools • PERT/GANTT Charts – Program Evaluation Review Technique • Activity — element of work • Event— Start or Completion Point • Network — Graphic representation of a program consisting of activities and events which are shown as interconnected paths • Critical Path — the path of a network that requires the longest period of time to complete

Continued • Integrated Budgeting Tools — % Complete; % Expended • Microsoft Project

Uncertainty Reducing Techniques • To reduce requirement and development uncertainties – configuration management – limited state of the art advances (upper bound on achievable performance) – successive limited objectives (distinct development phases) – distinct development models and prototypes

Continued – early and repeated testing (do it!) – incremental improvements – parallel development (comparison but costly) • To reduce dynamic uncertainties – keep the options open – technological transparency

Configuration Management • Configuration of a product is subject to continuous change during development. Desirable, but needs to be controlled. • Configuration management ensures that a product meets requirements, and that any changes in the requirements are evaluated, identified, controlled and recorded.

Continued • Specifications form a major portion of the baseline which serves as a point of departure for future work. • Configuration items partition the product into a physical hierarchy that force the identification of interfaces. • If one assigns a baseline to each configuration item and to each interface, progressive refinement of the product can proceed at any subsystem level in a systematic manner.

Uncertainty and Risk • Three related situations: – Risk: describe all possible outcomes, and assign meaningful occurrence probabilities to each. – Uncertain: all alternatives are known but no objective basis to assign probabilities – Ignorance: all the alternative outcomes cannot be defined, let alone their occurrence probabilities. – Known unknowns and unknowns

Odds and Ends • Hiring – Talent, desire, enthusiasm • Management – Time, attention, direction • 2 PI 5 Rule of costing