ABSTRACT
Clearly, spending money well in the early program phases to mitigate risks and prevent them from appearing later in the program has the effect of solving problems in their least expensive form when the investment is minimized. Solving problems after the engineering drawings, test plans and procedures, manufacturing and quality planning, customer training materials, and technical data are complete, simply costs more than solving problems when a simple conversation in the hallway can preclude the problem from ever materializing. For example, a 15 min conversation between four engineers costing the company $50/hour results in a total of (4)(1/4)($50) = $50. This same problem could cost $100,000 or more to correct in the late program phases and have a signicantly adverse impact on the delivery schedule. The logic of these ideas still fails to penetrate the defense systems of some of the people who work on these programs.
