CAIV Cost As Independent Variable ...

ACC: Acquisition Community Connection

... "Some key methods that are considered essential Cost As an Independent Variable (CAIV) tools are design trades (making decisions that balance cost and performance), allocation (breaking down cost targets and performance requirements for your design teams), cost estimating and analysis (developing responsive cost tools that predict life cycle cost for a given design), requirements analysis (including tools like Voice of the Customer (VoC) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to translate customer/warfighter requirements to design, risk analysis (properly using risk information to adjust trades), Pareto analysis (focusing your efforts on the most important decisions), Value Engineering (identifying opportunities for improvement where cost and performance are out of balance), Design To Cost (achieving cost targets within design teams), and supplier partnerships (working with other members of the value chain to achieve cost reductions). " ...