A cost simulation tool for estimating the cost of operating government owned and operated ships
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Authors
Redman, Terry Lee
Subjects
Advisors
Boger, Dan C.
Kemple, W.G.
Date of Issue
1994-09
Date
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
en_US
Abstract
The cost of operating ships is difficult to predict. A historic ship's operating cost database is maintained by the Military Sealift Command (MSC); but, it is very difficult to extract or manipulate the data to support prediction or regression analysis. An alternative was sought that would reduce the effort for the user when attempting to make predictions from the data. If the data for each cost category (salary, training, fuel, port and miscellaneous, subsistence, ship's equipage, and voyage repairs) could be well approximated using probability distributions, then the costs of an operational scenario, with estimates of the uncertainties, could be obtained through use of a Monte Carlo simulation. The MSC data was divided into subsets, one for model fitting and one for validation. Once probability distributions had been fit to the data, a Monte Carlo simulation tool was developed using the Crystal Ball simulation add in to Microsoft Excel. The data analysis and cost model were then validated using empirical data. Based on the results, the Cost Simulation model provides a useful tool for predicting operating costs and supports sensitivity analysis of various ship's operating cost scenarios
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Operations Research
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
137 p.;28 cm.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.