Stability of the Cost Performance Index and an Estimate-at-Completion for Space-System Related Contracts

Abstract

This paper investigates space-system related contracts associated with U.S. Department of Defense Acquisition Category I (ACAT I) programs, the stability of the cost performance index, and an estimate-at-completion based on the schedule-cost performance index. It is shown that, for this class of contracts, stability of both quantities exists, but that the point at which this stability occurs is much later in the contract than for data sets previously considered in the literature. The results are valid for four subsets of the data, as well: (1) contracts with stable baselines, (2) contracts with full reporting history, (3) the collection of contracts for spacecraft, payloads, user equipment/terminals, engineering models, software, and upgrades, and (4) contracts having a fixed total quantity.