Strategic Cost Fundamentals

by Robert C Creese (Author)

This book is designed to introduce designers, engineers, technologists, estimators, project managers, and financial analysts as well as students in engineering and business to strategic cost tools for project cost evaluations. The three main sections are as follows. (1) Cost Relationships, Financial Statements, and Performance Measures–This section describes the relationships between cash flows and profits; the relationships between financial statements and the Purcell Diagram; and the issues of cost estimating, time-based breakeven analysis and time-based earned schedule. (2) Tools for Economic Evaluations–This section considers the basic mathematical relations used behind the economic equations and factors; discrete and continuous interest; depreciation terms and methods; and the Present Value of Principal Approach for evaluating loans. (3) Methods for Project Evaluation and Risk Analysis–This section considers payback periods, present worth analysis, return on investment, internal rate of return, benefit/cost ratios and positive-negative project balances; risk techniques of sensitivity analysis, optimistic-pessimistic analysis, discrete probability examples, and continuous probability models using the normal and triangular distributions.

About the Author
Dr. Robert C. Creese was Professor of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at West Virginia University and taught courses on Engineering Economy, Advanced Engineering Economics, Cost and Estimating for Manufacturing, Manufacturing Processes, and Advanced Manufacturing Processes. He has previously taught at The Pennsylvania State University (9 years), Grove City College (4 years), Aalborg University in Denmark (3 sabbaticals), and West Virginia University for 35 years. He worked at US Steel for two years as an Industrial Engineer before starting his teaching career.

Dr. Creese is a Fellow of the AACE International, received the Charles V. Keane Service Award and Brian D. Dunfield Educational Service Award presented by AACE International, and was treasurer of the Northern West Virginia Section of AACE International for more than 20 years. He is a Life Member of AACE International, ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education), and ASM (American Society for Materials). He also is a member of ICEAA (International Cost Estimating & Analysis Association), AIST (Association for Iron & Steel Technology), AWS (American Welding Society), and AFS (American Foundry Society).

He obtained his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, his M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Metallurgy from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Robert C. Creese has authored the book Introduction to Manufacturing Processes and Materials (Marcel Dekker-1999) and co-authored two books Estimating and Costing for the Metal Manufacturing Industries (Marcel Dekker-1992) with Dr. M. Adithan, Professor Emeritus of VIT University Vellore, India, and Dr. B.S. Pabla of the Technical Teachers' Training Institute, Chandigarh, India, and Strategic Cost Analysis for Project Managers and Engineers (New Age International Publishers-2010) with Dr. M. Adithan, VIT University, Vellore, India. He has authored/co-authored more than 100 technical papers.