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Frontier Technology, Inc. provides acquisition support, analytical services, customized software applications, and systems integration services to government, aerospace, and commercial enterprises. FTI provides acquisition support through engineering, services, cost analysis services, and distributed simulation. The company has been successful in developing processes and automated tools for assessing affordability, ROI, Total Ownership Cost, and Cost As An Independent Variable (CAIV) involving the modernization of existing systems and design trades on new, advanced systems.
Frontier Technology, Inc.'s (FTI) Integrated Cost Estimation (ICE) tool, an element of its Integrated Desktop Analysis and Planning Systems (IDAPS), brings together the financial management communities' best cost-estimating tools and databases into an integrated environment with a user-friendly graphical user interface and wizard to guide the user through the cost-estimating process. With ICE, program managers, engineers, and researchers can develop a basic cost estimate in a short time using the community-accepted models without having to learn how to use the various detailed cost estimating models. ICE has evolved into a robust, collaborative cost tool providing the non-cost-expert user, a capability to estimate credibly the development, production, and operations/ support costs for Department of Defense systems. ICE was created for the development planning community within Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) and enhanced through Phase 3 investments by both AFMC's Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) and by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). It features:
FTI has worked with AFRL and numerous AFMC product centers to increase the value of the Phase II SBIR from just under $750,000 to over $3,400,000. In addition, AFMC has purchased a 13 site license for use of the ICE cost-estimating tool throughout the command's various systems product centers, depots and laboratory locations/organizations. This license is a key element of an AFMC response to an important initiative to increase the cost-estimating capability across the entire Air Force. The license enables personnel at the AFMC Centers around the country to use the ICE tool, with other AFMC-licensed, DoD-accepted, parametric cost models and data. Robert Novak, Senior Technical Cost Advisor to HQ AFMC, stated that AFMC's initiative has two goals: to relieve the administrative burden of each Center to license the tools individually; and to provide accepted tools to which the AFMC analysts previously did not have access. "We are trying to build a robust tool bag that will be available to cost analysts and programs across AFMC. Our intent is to improve cost estimating across AFMC through the consistent application of community-accepted parametric cost estimating models and tools. ICE provides a unique capability for the analyst to estimate a life-cycle cost for a system, quickly and easily with a ¡°user-friendly" graphical interface, in conjunction with our other licensed parametric cost models," said Mr. Novak. FTI has also sold the tool commercially to DoD Prime Contractors.
Barbara Barber
Frontier Technology, Inc.
26 Castilian Drive
Goleta, CA 93117
Phone: (805) 685-6672
Website: http://www.fti-net.com/
Email: bbarber@fti-net.com
