Assessing strategies for obtaining advanced engineering technologies with highly uncertain benefits

Comprehensive financial methods are presented which can evaluate alternative strategies for obtaining advanced engineering technologies, such as CAD/CAE, when the values of the benefits are highly uncertain or even unknown. The methods integrate traditional financial discounting procedures for known cost data with expert opinions for estimating benefit values and incorporate engineering performance improvement, project volumes ranging from one to infinity, various time horizons, and a comprehensive sensitivity analysis. Realistic strategies and actual case data are used to illustrate the procedures. Impacts from project volume, project benefit values and the selection of the financial evaluation criterion are discussed.<
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