Question

Scenario: When students complete 15 credits per quarter, the BAS takes 18 months or 6 quarters to finish. The cost is estimated at $2,500 per quarter or $15,000 for the entire program. You are at the end of your 2nd quarter and have completed 45 credits. You had to purchase additional textbooks and incurred a quarterly expense of $500 to be added to the $2,500 budgeted cost per quarter. Please note the above data is loosely adapted and does not exactly represent NSC costs.

Step 2: Compute the SV, CV, SPI and CPI for the project and tell me what the numbers mean and how the project is going in terms of cost and schedule (10 points).

SV

CV

SPI

CPI

Step 3: How will the above performance indicators change if at the end of the 2nd quarter a student has completed 30 credits? (5 points)

Answer 1

Information provided:

No. of credits planned per quarter (A) = 15

No. of quarters to finish the course (B) = 6

Total No. of credits to finish the course (A*B) = 90

Cost estimated per quarter (C) = $2,500

Cost estimated per credit (CR = C/A) = $167

Total cost estimate to finish the course (B * C) = $15,000

Solution:

1. 45 credits completed in 2 quarters at $3000 per quarter

Planned Value (PV) = Cost per credit * Credits per quarter * No. of quarters = $167 * 15 * 2 = $5000

Earned Value (EV) = Cost per credit * Credits earned = $167 * 45 = $ 7500

Actual Cost (AC) = Cost per quarter * No of quarters = $3000 * 2 = $6000

SV = EV – PV = $2500

CV = EV – AC = $1500

SPI = EV/PV = 1.50

CPI = EV/AC = 1.25

So, as seen above, the progress is better than the plan with minimized cost

2. 30 credits completed in 2 quarters at $3000 per quarter

Planned Value (PV) = Cost per credit * Credits per quarter * No. of quarters = $167 * 15 * 2 = $5000

Earned Value (EV) = Cost per credit * Credits earned = $167 * 30 = $5000

Actual Cost (AC) = Cost per quarter * No of quarters = $3000 * 2 = $6000

SV = EV – PV = 0

CV = EV – AC = -$1000

SPI = EV/PV = 1

CPI = EV/AC = 0.83

So, as seen above, the progress is on par with the plan with cost overruns.