A schedule is monetized by incorpo- rating task budgets, which allows the program to quantify schedule vari- ances in units of dollars rather than in units of time. Here are a few important points for the engineer to note regarding schedule: First, it is a refined skill for the engineer to be able to reasonably approximate how long a particular analysis task will take based on its work scope. Durations will depend on factors such as analysis complexity, degree of resolution desired, available staffing and tools, final deliverable format (e.g., slide deck presentation or formal written report), and more. Experience helps the engineer provide reasonably accurate approximations of task durations. Second, the engineer should not hesitate taking ownership of assign- ments and doing what is necessary to successfully complete the task on time—within ethical and corporate policy bounds. Though rare, some- times it’s necessary to work on a weekend, one’s day off, or a holiday in order to meet an upcoming deadline. These uncommon perturbations to a healthy work-life balance should not be abhorred, especially by salaried employees. Finally, the engineer should be- ware of the promise from program management that
[A] company’s reputation is essentially an aggregation of its employees’ performance ...
technologies, and manufacturing pro- cesses are not yet established. Clearly, fixed-price contracts place more risk—and a greater incentive— on contractors to execute the con- tract within budget than do cost-plus contracts. Hence, the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires that fixed-price con- tracts be utilized as much as possible over cost-plus contracts in order to incentivize effective contract man- agement by the contractor. To the engineer, cost trickles down as the budget of labor hours allotted by the program to perform a specific engineering task. Labor hours are converted into dollars via the engi- neer’s fully burdened labor rate (i.e., what the company pays for you, including overhead costs). It is imperative for the engineer to stay within budget when executing an analysis. For example, an assignment that has a budget of only 40 labor hours may only have sufficient budget for a spreadsheet-level hand calcula- tion and a first-order computational model with simplified geometries. In contrast, an effort with a budget of 160 labor hours may be able to afford development of a detailed computa- tional model. The labor hour budget required to document the analysis should be accounted for in the effort and commensurate to the budget, which can range from a short slide deck to a formal detailed report. The engineer is encouraged to keep track of his or her own labor charges on the effort and to report regularly to the CAM on technical progress. One final important point to em- phasize here—a defense contractor’s technical capability and financial re- sponsibility are two factors that are considered, among others, when the
type of contract is deliberated by government agencies. Hence, com- pany reputation matters. Because a company’s reputation is essentially an aggregation of its employees’ per- formance—for example, engineers— the engineering execution of each employee directly affects the entire company’s reputation. Schedule The duration and deadline set by the program to perform each task are critical elements. At the onset of a new effort, program management will create an integrated master schedule (IMS) with milestones, gate reviews, and a hierarchy of tasks to perform. The IMS incorporates logic that couples tasks together; for ex- ample, hardware design may be con- current with analysis but is followed by engineering build (fabrication) and subsequently by engineering testing. Hence, a schedule is defined by setting a timeline of task start and completion dates that meet contrac- tual deliverable dates.
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