Engineering Economy presents the economic dimensions in the evaluation of engineering alternatives. The course emphasizes the analytical considerations of money and its impact on the systems design process and engineering management, systems acquisitions, and current military cost analysis. The course is taught in four lesson blocks. The Time Value of Money (TMV) block provides engineering science models for economic analysis of engineering alternatives by introducing interest concepts, cash flow diagrams and discounting formulas. The Analysis Methods block presents methods for project evaluation and comparison. The After Tax Cash Flow block incorporates the real-world effect of taxes, depreciation and inflation into the analysis of alternatives. Finally, the Capital Budgeting block synthesizes topics such as project financing and risk into the economic analysis process. Several lessons are devoted to case studies that integrate the material in each lesson block in the context of Army related acquisition problems typically faced by systems engineering and engineering majors. The course develops communication skills through two technical reports. (Note: change course number to EM381, 2004-1) |