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Predictive Analytic Approaches for Estimating the Life Cycle Cost of Agile Programs
The transition to agile management approaches for Software development has introduced even more
challenges for cost estimating teams, especially as they support long-term budget development and
program execution. Learn about how Unison Cost Engineering is internalizing an agile program into
TruePlanning.
Carrot or Stick? If it were only that simple
One of the debates that the PACE Directors, including me, have is whether to nudge and persuade cost engineers, CFOs and accountants to adopt progressive management accounting methods with a carrot or a stick.
VOLUME VOLUME VOLUME
I recently participated in an online discussion on LinkedIn as to the impact of volume on cost. To be honest, this is one of my favorites, although controversial topics.
A LinkedIn user was listing all the typical cost drivers for a product, material, overhead, burden profit and of course, volume. I took and still take exception to volume being a cost driver. It often becomes a price driver, but I will get into that shortly.
The first thing that needs to be understood is, are you looking at cost from the perspective of a seller or buyer? There is a significant difference.
The Long Arc Bends Toward Justice
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” The origin of this sentence can be traced to Theodore Parker who was a Unitarian minister and prominent American Transcendentalist born in 1810. Parker called for the abolition of slavery in the USA in an 1853 collection of “Ten Sermons of Religion”.
So, what does this have to do with mission of the Society of Cost Engineers (SOCE)? Plenty.
Repeatability vs Flexibility
The question I pose to the readers is, given the definitions of SHOULD COST, REPAETABILITY and FLEXABILITY, do you prefer a solution that has repeatability or flexibility? Is it more important to you to have the same answer regardless of who conducted the estimate or to give each estimator the ability to tweak each model to their own liking?
Plastic Packaging Tax
For those of us working within the packaging industry, the plastic packaging tax is currently the most pressing issue. The plastic packaging tax forms a part of the EU’s Green Deal, a comprehensive package of tax and non-tax measures. The UK government’s aim is to tackle the global issue of plastic pollution through the implementation of the tax on plastic packaging that contains less than 30% recycled plastic content, from 1st April 2022. Other European countries, such as, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have also set out intentions to implement measures to reduce plastic use. Within this blog, we set out to clarify the scope and implications of the UK plastic packaging tax (PPT), and cover the proposed measures set out by other EU countries. The Benchmark cloud has now been updated to cater for the new UK plastic packaging tax, making it easier for the producers and buyers of packaging to keep track of the new regulation and its impact on business operations.