Engineering Economic Decisions

Week #1 (1)
Suhaida Mohd Sood

Introduction and Motivation

Discussion Topics
Rational decision-making process
The role of engineers in business
What makes engineering economics decisions difficult?
Strategic decisions
The fundamental principles in engineering economics

Opening Story: Google

A Little Google History

1995

1998

Developed in dorm room by Larry Page and Sergey Brin,

graduate students at Stanford University
Nicknamed BackRub (reflecting great taste )
Raised $25 million to set up Google, Inc.
Ran 100,000 queries a day out of a garage in Menlo Park

2005

Over 4,000 employees worldwide

Over 8 billion pages indexed
Estimated market value over $100 billion
As of today, the value of Google is likely to be in the
hundreds of billions range

Types of business
1. Formation & Formalities
organisations
2. Liability
3. Taxation
4. Structure
5. Capital source and size

Sole proprietorships - single owner who will

be legally responsible for all the business
debts.
Partnerships - shared ownership by two or
more partners. The business profit/loss and
debts are shared according to their agreed
proportion.
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Types of business
organisations
Limited companies or Corporation

Created by law and are regarded as separate

entity from the owner.
The liabilities of the business debts are
limited to the amount of investment in the
business.
Two types:

Private limited - ownership limited to amongst

family member or friends.
Public limited - ownership is open to the public.
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Types of business

Trading - the business which buy products

and then selling those products to customers
e.g. wholesalers and retailers
Service industries - provide service to
customers such as doctors, lawyers,
accountants etc.
Manufacturing - the business which convert
raw material into finished product and sell the
finished products to customers e.g. factory
manufacturing electrical goods, foods, cars
etc.
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Rational Decision-Making Process

1. Recognize the decision
problem
2. Collect all needed
(relevant) information
3. Identify the set of feasible
decision alternatives
4. Define the key objectives
and constraints
5. Select the best possible
and implementable
decision alternative

A Simple Illustrative Example: Car to

Need to lease a car
Lease Saturn or Honda?

Recognize the decision

problem
Collect all needed
(relevant) information
Identify the set of feasible
decision alternatives
Define the key objectives
and constraints
Select the best possible
and implementable
decision alternative

Gather technical and

financial data
Select cars to consider
Wanted: small cash
outlay, safety, good
performance,
aesthetics,
Choice between Saturn
and Honda (or others)
Select a car (i.e.,
Honda, Saturn or
another brand)
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Engineering Economic
Decision: Difficult?

Figure 1.1 A helicopter lowers

towers for high-voltage power lines
into place. Many say the country
needs to build more of these lines
to move renewable power and
become more efficient.

Engineering Economic Decisions

Needed e.g. in the following (connected) areas:
Profit! Then continue
at the next stage
Manufacturing
Design

Financial
planning

Investment
and loan

Marketing
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What Makes Engineering Economic

Decisions Difficult? Predicting the Future

Estimating the required

investments
Estimating product
manufacturing costs
Forecasting the demand
for a brand new product
Estimating a good
selling price
Estimating product life
and the profitability of
continuing production
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The Role of Engineers in Business

Create & Design
Engineering Projects

Analyze

Production Methods
Engineering Safety
Environmental Impacts
Market Assessment

Evaluate

Evaluate

Expected
Profitability
Timing of
Cash Flows
Degree of
Financial Risk

Impact on Financial
Statements
Firms Market Value
Stock Price

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Accounting vs. Engineering Economy

Evaluating past performance

Accounting

Evaluating and predicting future events

Engineering Economy

Past

Future
Present
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Key Factors in Selecting Good

Engineering Economic Decisions

Objectives, available resources, time and uncertainty

are the key defining aspects of all engineering economic
decisions

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Large-Scale Engineering Projects

These typically
require a large sum of investment
can be very risky
take a long time to see the financial outcomes
lead to revenue and cost streams that are difficult to
predict
All the above aspects (and some others not listed here)
point towards the importance of EEA

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Types of Strategic Engineering Economic

Decisions in the Manufacturing Sector

Service Improvement
Equipment and Process Selection
Equipment Replacement
New Product and Product Expansion

Cost reduction or profit maximization can be seen as

generic (common, eventual) objectives
In the most general sense, we have to make decisions
under resource constraints, and in presence of
uncertainty not only in the EEA context
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Example 1:
Healthcare Service Improvement
1 Traditional Plan: Patients
visit the service providers
2 New Strategy: Service
providers visit the patients
Which one of the two plans
is more economical? The
answer typically depends on
the type of patients and the
services offered. Examples?

service providers

patients

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Example 2:
Equipment Replacement Problem

Key question:
When is the right time to
replace an old machine
or equipment?

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Example 3:
New Product and Product Expansion

Shall we build or acquire

a new facility to meet the
increased (increasing
forecasted) demand?
Is it worth spending
money to market a new
product?

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Example 4: Cost Reduction

Should a company buy

new equipment to
perform an operation that
is now done manually?
Should we spend money
now, in order to save
more money later?
The answer obviously
depends on a number of
factors.

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Further Areas of Strategic Engineering

Economic Decisions in the Service Sector

Commercial Transportation
Logistics and Distribution
Healthcare Industry
Electronic Markets and Auctions
Financial Engineering and Banking
Retail
Hospitality and Entertainment
Customer Service and Maintenance

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The Four Fundamental Principles of

Engineering Economics

1: An instant dollar is worth more than a distant dollar

2: Only the relative (pair-wise) difference among the
considered alternatives counts
3: Marginal revenue must exceed marginal cost, in order to
carry out a profitable increase of operations
4: Additional risk is not taken without an expected additional
return of suitable magnitude

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Principle 1
An instant dollar is worth more than a
distant dollar

Principle 2
Only the cost (resource) difference
among alternatives counts

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Principle 3
Marginal (unit) revenue has to
exceed marginal cost, in order to
increase production
Manufacturing cost

1 unit

Marginal
cost

Marginal
revenue
Sales revenue

1 unit

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Principle 4
Additional risk is not taken without a
suitable expected additional return
Investment Class

Potential
Risk

Expected
Return

Savings account
(cash)

Lowest

1.5%

Bond (debt)

Moderate

4.8%

Stock (equity)

Highest

11.5%

A simple illustrative example. Note that all investments imply

some risk: portfolio management is a key issue in finance
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Summary

The term engineering economic decision refers to any

investment or other decision related to an engineering
project
The five main types of engineering economic decisions are
(1) service improvement, (2) equipment and process
selection, (3) equipment replacement, (4) new product and
product expansion, and (5) cost reduction
The factors of time, resource limitations and uncertainty
are key defining aspects of any investment project
Notice that all listed decision types can be seen and
modeled as a constrained decision (optimization) problem

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