Thesis
The changing cost of defence systems
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2024
- Thesis identifier
- T17161
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201470006
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Ever since humankind began to undertake building projects and other complex activities, there has been a need to forecast the resources required, to ensure that they will all be available. Advances in the scope and complexity of projects make this task significantly more challenging, especially in areas such as Defence where the customer requirements drive the scope and complexity of projects to the maximum level that can (probably) be delivered. This study explores the existing literature on changes in the cost of Defence Systems over time and notes that, in addition to a pervasive lack of accessible data, many previous authors have tended to rely on variation in the parameters of the products (such as in service date, speed and mass) to explain changes in their costs. In some cases this appears to be justifiable where, for example, all of the Systems being compared contain similar technologies and were designed and manufactured in a similar context. However, other cases, such as when it is asserted that all tactical aircraft ever produced can be compared without considering the context in which they were produced, seem hard to defend. This literature review generates three key questions that the rest of this research sets out to answer. These are: 1. What did Defence Systems cost in the past? 2. How should we compare Defence Systems over time? 3. How should we expect the prices of Defence Systems to change over time? To shed light on these questions three case studies, down selected from a longer list of potential options, are examined in detail. These are: UK Independent School fees; UK based Formula 1 team running costs; UK Defence System costs. The two non-Defence studies shed light on changes in the processes delivering goods and services in manpower intensive and technology intensive enterprises, which are then compared with the results from the Defence case study. In each case consistent results are found which suggest that common contextual factors are at work that drive the cost changes in the processes underlying all three domains. This analysis also includes a careful examination of how costs should best be compared across time. Considering the processes used to produce products and their wider context, rather than the products themselves, a novel approach to forecasting the cost of future Defence Systems is outlined. This examines the likely duration of a development project, depending on high-level measures of project challenge and also examines the size of the team likely to be required. Data on the project Challenge Ratings of post war UK and US military and civil aircraft development projects are used to predict project duration and a good fit is found. Insufficient data is currently available to understand the drivers of increases in required team sizes and so the future work necessary to examine this dimension of the new approach is outlined.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Acherson, Graeme
- Bedford, Tim
- Perchard, Andrew
- Resource Type
- DOI
Relations
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PDF of thesis T17161 | 2024-12-10 | Public | Download |