The tables of contents are generated automatically and are based on the data records of the individual contributions available in the index of the TIB portal. The display of the Tables of Contents may therefore be incomplete.
Use and Implementation of a Project Historical Database System - The collection of cost, schedule, resource, and technical data from completed projects can facilitate the development of benchmarks, ratios, factors, and other statistical analyses to measure and evaluate project performance and quality. Over time, if a company introduces and properly uses a project historical database system, individual project performance, as well as corporate decision making in choosing the best projects to pursue, will improve. This concept involves expanding project management and corporate management thought processes beyond the easier, and more easily understood project process cycle relating to individual projects, to the broader concept of treating individual projects as integrated activities in the overall corporate budget or strategy.
Economics of Equipment Acquisition -- A Case Study - This case study pertains to a privately held manufacturer of standard and custom read-write preamplifiers used in hard disk drives. This company had a dominant share of the worldwide market for preamplifiers that were designed into many of the new disk drives introduced in the market. The study provides an overview of the company; a description of the equipment methodology (for a flame atomic absorption spectrometer); and shows how a capital investment justification analysis was accomplished for the purchase of this equipment.
Preliminary Economic Decisions -- A Simplified Approach - This article intends to develop simplified expressions to capture the essence of and provide insight into the understanding of economic decisions, all this with the help of traditional discounted cash flow equations. This approach provides a new view of the payback period concept which, though a simple method, ignores the project's life and the value of money at different times. The author maintains that the payback period -- Or the return on original investment -- Acts as a constraint on the preliminary analysis at the moment feasibility studies start. Finally, this article also contributes with an approximation to the EAW comparison which allows us to make decisions in cases of projects with different life cycles.