Re: Ariane 5 failure

[Alan Brain <aebrain@dynamite.com.au>]

Robert S. White wrote:
> 
> In article <mheaney-ya023180000210962257430001@news.ni.net>, mheaney@ni.net
> says...
> 
> >It's never cost effective to skimp on hardware if it means human
> >programmers have to write more complex software.
> 
>   Not if the ratio is tilted very heavy towards reoccuring cost versus
> Non-Reoccuring Engineering (NRE).  How about 12 staff-months versus $300 extra
> hardware cost on 60,000 units?

$300 extra on 60,000 units. That's $18 Million, right?

vs

12 Staff-months. Now if your staff is 1, then that's maybe $200,000 for
a single top-notch profi. If your staff is 200, each at 100,000 cost (ie
average wage is about 50K/year), then that's 20 million. But say you
only have the one guy. And say it adds 50% to the risk of failure. With
consequent and liquidated damages of 100 Million. Then that's 50
million, 200 thousand it's really costing.

Feel free to make whatever strawman case you want. The above figures are
based on 2 different projects (actually the liquidated damages one
involved 6 people, rather than 1, and an estimated 70% increased chance
of failure, but I digress). 

Summary: In the real world, and with the current state-of-the-art, I
agree with the original statement as an excellent general rule.
  
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